LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






Shelf 



UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 



j;'' 2 1886 



<'*.'■ 



•K\ 




iilexandEr Ramsay, Esq, 

BANNF, SCOTLAND, 

SECRETARY Polled Cattle Society, Aq; 



• THE BREED 
THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 



THE BREED 

THAT BEATS THE RECORD 

AND WINS IN THE RACE FOR SUPREMACY AS THE MOST ECONOMICAL 
PRODUCER OF THE PRIMEST MEAT FOR THE MILLION. 



A DEMONSTRATION 



Properties, Prepotence, Pre-eminence and Prestige, 



ABERDEEN-ANGUS 

// THE POLLED CATTLE. ^^ V^^^V 




WITH AN INTB OB UC TION B Y 
JUBGE J. S. GOOBWIN, A.M., BELOIT, KANSAS. \, 



The Polled Cattle compel the attention of the civilized world. 



^ ^ JUL > ]886> i 



DETROIT: .^^ WASB^ 

Aldine Company, 40 and 42 Congress Street Wcs' 

1886. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by The Aldine Co. in the 
office of the Liljiarian at Washington, D. C. 



K^ 



CONTENTS 



Page 
List of Illustrations, . . . . . x 

Introduction, . . . . . . xi 



CHAPTER I. 

NATIVE HABITAT AND PHYSICAL CONDITIONS. 

Home of the breed — North-eastern counties — These in for- 
mer and pre'sent times — Geological formation — The 
Grampians— Granite — Lower down — Gneiss, mica-schist, 
etc., and red sandstone — Soil — Naturally infertile — By- 
cultivation made very productive —" Timberless Bu- 
chan" — Soil in Forfarshire and "The Mearns" — Climate 
—Depending on heat and moisture, very wretched — 
Low mean temperature and range — At coast, inland, 
and among the mountains — Rainfall — Crops — Chiefly 
turnips, grass and oats — Barley, wheat, etc., only in 
favorable spots — The district described by a Frenchman, 
the author of "Le Betail en Eeosse" — "Very windy" — 
By an American — Mr. Wm. Warfield, theeijiinent Short- 
horn authority — Graceful tribute to Aberdeenshire 
Shorthorns and "Prime Scots" — Comments on the con- 
ditions of rearing — Resultiog in the production of the 
native Polled Aberdeen as the " Prime Scots — Described 
by a native and breeder of the rival roan — A remarkable 
article from the Breeder^s Gazette — The Aberdeenshire 
Shorthorn founded on the cross with the native breed — 
Proof of the value of Aberdeen-Angus blood in giving 
backbone— Uejna.rks of M. de la Trehonnais, well-known 
French authority on "Durhams," corrected— Testimony 
of Clement Stephenson, F.R.C.V.S., the every year cham- 
pioiiy . . , . . . . . 



n CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE BUCOLIC IDEAL. 

Mr. McCombie's description of his ideal animal — The 
author's summed up in " as even from end to end as an egg " 
and " beef from the lug to the heel'' — The eye, head, and 
crown fully commented on — Color and pile — Standard 
color black — The hardiest color— So stated by M. Paul 
Marchal — Color of the breed in early times — Dun the 
color of the fairy cattle— Dr. Skene Keith and Mr. Hea- 
drick quoted — "Variegated with white universally 
disesteemed "—Pile early attended to— To withstand the 
rigors of winter — Two coats — An under and upper 
"overcoat" — Hide — Weighs lightest at Chicago — And 
sells highest in Aberdeen market — Connection with 
ancient Urus accounting for certain variations— The red 
color — Bowie's and Fullerton's opinions — " Purest and 
best"— Hon. M. H. Cochrane's, of Hillhurst, experiments 
— A " comely " couplet — " Black polls to till the land like 
the black hogs" — A remarkable quotation from 1882 
(London) Bural Almanac — "White points coincide with 
coarse fibre, and black with fine fibre and compact 
size" — Black the result of fancy — Origin of the term 
"black cattle "—Early preference for black cattle by 
Varro, etc. — By Markham in 16th, and Lawrence early 
in the present century — Samples— Mr. Hannay's "Lady 
Paramount," Ballindalloch " Judge "—Death of latter 
in possession of Judge J. S. Goodwin, Beloit, Kansas — 
1879 Smithfield "reserve"— Clement Stephenson's 1884 
champion— Comparison with the first scale of bovine 
points— Written 600 B.C., by Mago the Carthaginian — 
The standard for two thousand years — Up to the mus- 
cular maturity ideal of Prof. G. T. Brown's advocacy in 
his new book " Animal Life," . . . .12 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MILKY WAY. 

Dairy properties — The breed first famed for their dairy 
qualities— For which sought out "all over the North" 



CONTENTS. iii 

in the beginning of the century— Large export of dairy 
produce from Aberdeenshire — Youat stated the Buchan 
cows were equal to the Ayrshires in quality. Records 
of Portlethen Herd in 1845— Quantity of milk given by 
show-yard animals — The late Lord Airlie's experience 
of the breed as fitted for the dairy — Highly satisfactory 
— Results in the late Fyvie Herd — Other numerous in- 
stances not necessary — "Buchan Prime in Buchan 
Rhyme" — Another remarkable cow — Baron de Fonte- 
ney's high opinion of the quality of the milk — General 
considerations — Beefing qualities were developed pre- 
eminently at expense of milking qualities — Three re- 
markable quotations from Daily Free Press, of Aberdeen, 
Scotland, ....... 23 



CHAPTER IV. 

VIGOR. 

Breeding qualities— Twins and triplets— A unique case of a 
calf-producing cow — 25 calves in 7 years — 18 came to 
maturity— Remarkable cases of vigor of famous cows — 
"Old Grannie," "Black Meg," etc.— And bulls— Consti- 
tution — T. W. Harvey's experience — Superior to the 
severe conditions of rearing — Statement by the Farmer^s 
Meview — "Can winter anywhere" — System of wintering 
in Aberdeenshire — Exposed to winter rigors — Opinions 
of Principal Walley, P.R.C.V.S., and Clement Stephen- 
son, F.R.C.V.S., on the resistance of the breed to tuber- 
cular troubles — One of their chiefest advantages — An 
article from the London Live Stock Journal — Showing 
how in this the Polled Aberdeen- Angus " have the pull" 
— viz., in possession of "lean flesh" — the secret of their 
success in the show-yard and in disease resistance, . 39 



CHAPTER V. 

KANGEBS. 

Utility of want of horns — The London World and "Jim 
Lowther's" Polled Scots— Mr. Geo. Hendrie, of Detroit, 



IV CONTENTS. 

likes them for the same reason — "They can't hook the 
colts" — L. A. Hine's experience of their docility— E. G. 
Underhill's — Feeding and grazing qualities — "Graze all 
over the world" — In Australia— New Zealand — On the 
American plains— Mr. James Macdonald's visit to the 
Victoria Ranch, Kansas — In Demerara — Jamaica — 
Buenos Ayres— Gov. O. A. Hoadley's experience of the , 
breed as rustlers in New Mexico — President T. W. 
Holt's— W. H. Embry's— Judge J. S. Goodwin quotes 
two experiences of the West — Tfie liocky Moiintain Hus- 
handmari's statement of the success of the breed in Mon- 
tana — The experience of the Montana Cattle Company — 
Messrs. Martin & Myers— T/ie North- Western Live Stock 
Journal— Ciitt\e supplied by Messrs. Estill & Elliot 
"Rustling" — Success of the breed recorded in The Field 
— The Cochrane Ranch, Bow River — Mr. Geo. Findlay's 
interviews with ranchmen— Mr. J. J. Hill's testimony — 
National Live Stock Journal — The breed " answers admir- 
ably in Texas" — Stands the alternations in climate — 
Come out better than any other imported cattle — S. P. 
Cunningham makes similar statement— T/ie American 
Agnculturist and its pictorial proof of sui)eriority of the 
breed for the West, ...... 38 



CHAPTER VI. 

GRADES. 

Crosses and crossing— Numerous proofs of the superiority 
" over all" of the Shorthorn-Aberdeen cross — The influ- 
ence of the Aberdeenshire dam — Convincing proofs of 
this — The Polled. sire preferred — Makes a cross superior 
to the former— The best in the world— Proofs— The Aber- 
deen sire used everywhere- In Galloway still— All over 
Scotland— Ireland — Every day more so — Statements of 
the late H. D. Adamson— Mr. Hine— Mr. T. W. Harvey 
The Canadian Live Stock Journal and Aberdeen grades — 
Experience of Gearj^ Bros. — Details of Hon. M. H. 
Cochrane's experience— Hon. Mr. Pope — J. J. Rodgers — 
Estill & Elliot— Leonard Bros.- The verdict— Crosses 
with dairy breeds — Ayrshire — Holstein — Jersey, . . 48 



CONTENTS. V 

CHAPTER VII. 

EARLY MATURITY. 

Size— Authority of James Bruce, Ruthwell, Annan, Scot- 
land— T. W. Harvey, Chicago, 111.— Hon. F. Allen— Jas. 
Macclonald — Late H. D. Adamson — Robert Bruce, Great 
Smeaton, Northallerton, England — Weights — Offals — 
Bone of Watson's Smithfield heifer like that of a deer — 
Light offal — Proved by high per cent, of net to gross — 
Instances of light bone by Charles Bruce, cattle sales- 
man, Newcastle — Important extract from Scotsman — 
Dress over 72 per cent, at Poissy, 1857 — Early maturity- 
Henry Evershed's statement— In 1881 Aberdeen young- 
sters " sweep the boards " at Smithlield — Gain per day at 
Smithfield, 1879-1880— Not beef that always makes weight 
— In 1881 — Tables — The Field on the Altyre champions — 
Comparison with the other breeds — "Aged steers" once 
a hobby of the older breeders— New order of things — 
— Birmingham averages of 1883— Winners of ''Breed 
Cups" at Smithfield, 1883— Remarkable figures of the 
breed in 1885, ...... 61 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PRIME SCOTS. 

As beef producers — Aberdeen beef famed in 4th century — 
And ever since — How described in 1810 — Dr. A. Forsyth 
states in 1810 " they easily top the market at London " — 
Then fed on plain turniiDS and straw — Since then the 
term Prime Scots has solely applied to the Aberdeen 
Polled cattle — The Fariner''s Beview on this — Mark Lane 
Express — "An Aberdeen is thicker than a Hereford or 
Shorthorn" — Country Gentleman (London) on "Prime 
Aberdeens "--Mr. Hine visits London market — Col. G. W. 
Henry — G. L. Stictcher — Special reports in all journals 
— John Chalmers Morton, editor of The Agricultural Ga- 
zette, etc. — London Daily Telegraph on the Christmas 
market — H. D. Adamson — Mr. J. L. Thompson, of South 

■ Australia — An example report — Comments — Mr. Wm. 
Anderson's (Wellhouse), experience of Prime Scots — 



VI . CONTENTS. 

Quarterly Review , 1857— London /Standard— Times — Mark 
Lane Express — Mr. G. T. Turner, Live Stock Journal— Mr. 
McCombie's memorable remarks at Rothiemay sale — 
"Autobiography of a ' Prime Scot,'" by Druid, in All the 
Tear Round— Punch on Polled Scots, . .72 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE EPICURE'S CHOICE. 

The beef — National Live Stock Journal on the beef— Le Fer- 
mier — Beef recherches — The Agricultural Gazette, and test of 
Smithfield Club — At Chicago— Representation of Polled 
Aberdeen beef — Remarks of Aberdeen Free Press — Of 
Breeder^s Gazette— Mr. T. W. Harvey on the beef— Geary 
Brothers and the meat of their steer "Black Prince" — 
- At Kansas City— Beef of Col. Henry's " Bride 3rd"— Mr. 
P. D. Armour's compliment to the beef — Mr. J. J. Hill's 
steer "Benholm" — Croxson's (Stock Yards restaurant) 
choice — G. T. Williams, of the Stock Yards, declared 
"no man alive ever tasted better beef" — Mr. John B. 
Sherman again passes high encomiums on Angus beef, . 83 



CHAPTER X. 

TUNING UP. 

The Polls in American Fat Stock Shows— Sparingly exhi- 
bited— 1883, Kansas City —Geary's "Black Prince"— 
Henry's "Bride" — Gudgell & Simpson's — "Bruce's 
Queen"— Matthew's "Paris Heifer"— Chicago— Coch- 
rane's " Waterside Jock " — Dressed the largest per cent, 
of net to gross of any two-year-old of any year ; report 
of committee on him— Cochrane's cow, "Duchess 2ud, 
first in class of cows open to all ; committee's report — 
"Black Prince," breed champion, also sweepstakes in 
class judged by butchers — Flattering report of commit- 
tee — 1884, Kansas City— Grade " Aberuethj^" second in 
two-year-old grade class, first in class for cost of produc- 
tion — "Blaine" and "Logan" (Indiana Company) first 
and second in yearling classes for early maturity, and cost 



CONTENTS. Vll 

of production— Henry's "Bride 3rd" of Blairshinuoch— 

Mak(3s a clcdu svveop of every LI liu^^- — A remarkable series 
of victories for "a half-fed Augus"— H. D. Adamson's 
report of the show— " Burleigh's Pride" — A cross-bred 
Aberdeen -Hereford — Gains Breeder''s Gazette challenge 
shield — A living monument to the inliuence of Angus 
sire — Characterised as a venj remarkable animal — Pur- 
chased by Dr. C. J. Alloway, of Grand Forks, Dakota — 
The Angus sire has the merit — Chicago — Cochrane's 
"Netherwood Jack;" breed sweepstakes — ^"Blaine" 
" Logan " — " Abernethy," grade—'* Quality," grade — The 
last of "Black Prince" —Weight, 2,600 lbs.— Dressed 
over 71.50 per cent. — Success achieved by polls at shows 
— A special quotation for Prime Scots in America- - 
Aberdeen-Angus grow as much as any during first year 
— 1885, Kansas City — Gudgell & Simpson's "Sandy" 
takes the breed sweepstpAes, and The Polled Cattle 
Society's gold medal — "One of the best doddies ever 
seen"— "Uncle William Watson'— Grades and crosses 
— Chicago — "Benholm" takes breed championship and 
The Polled Cattle Society's gold medal —" Wildy"— 
"Blaine" and "Logan" — Committee's report — Gazette'^s 
report — Consolation class, "Benholm" and "Sandy" 
champions — " Benholm" highest net to gross" on record 
in America — Grades — Gazette^ s report — Comparison with 
other breeds favorable to Aberdeen-Angus — Farmer'' s 
Eeview and edible beef, "the aim of the exhibitor" — 
"Turriff" should have carried carcass sweepstakes — 
Exhibit at American shows "small, but select" — The 
breed destined to " Clement-Stephenson " all other 
breeds, . . . . . . . .90 



CHAPTER XL 

APOTHEOSIS. 

Part I. — The colossal victories of the breed for the last 80 
years— The Centenary Show of The Highland So- 
ciety, 1884 — Official report of the Society on the Polled 
Aberdeen-Angus Cattle, written by Rev. John Gillespie, 
A. M., Mouswald— Justice, Prince Albert of Baads, The 
Black Knight, Waterside, Matilda 2d, Electra — Justice 



Vlll CONTENTS 

heads the Ballinclallocli Prize Group, aud Matilda 
the Waterside Prize Family— Breeding of Justice— His 
importation to this country — Breeding of the other 
Prize-winners — Proof that " blood always tells" — Editor- 
ial comments of London Live- Stock Journal, highly 
flattering, as usual, to the "black-skins" — Mr. Geo. 
Hendry of the Daily Free Press, publishes valuable tes- 
timony — Pakt II. — Birmingham and Smithfield, in 
1885 — Extracts from reports of correspondents of the 
various stock organs of Britain and America on the 
appearance of the breed — " Makes a marked sensation " 
— "The best at the exhibition" — "The chief honors fall to 
them"—" Luxury," the double champion at both places 
— "The breed on the highest pinnacle of fame" — The 
cow class " not excelled by any in the exhibitions" — 
Aberdeen-Angus "black is the dominent color, for 
beef" — "Accomplished a feat unparalleled in fat-stock 
shows" — " No one breed had such types as had the black 
polls" — The Altyre exhibits — " Next" to Luxury — Altyre 
should have been "Reserve "of the Smithfield — Aber- 
deen Polls the " /Sco^s " of the early Norfalk graziers — 
The scene during the award of the Smithlield "blue 
ribbon" — '* Heather Bloom ! Heather Bloom ! " once more. 
Winnings of " Luxury "—Her sale, 2s. 6d. per lb.— Par- 
ticulars of her slaughter, carcass, etc, — Dresses 7G per 
cent, net to gross — ''Prodigious .'" — Breeding of Luxury, 105 

CHAPTER XII. 

APOTHEOSIS— CONTINUED. 

Part III. — The Aberdeen crosses — The cross-breds by the 
universal acclamation of the press, declared to have 
been the best part of the shows — The chief prize-winners 
were sired by Aberdeen Polled bulls— Ellects of • this 
cross — The Field declares this cross "the most success- 
ful ever tried — The best in the world— Ancdysin of the 
cross-bred classes— Breeding, prizes won, character, 
comments and comparisons gathered from many a llower 
in the gardens of live-stock journalism — The records 
is of Aberdeen-Angus only— The Galloway makes no 
light— The "difl'crence" between the Galloways aud the 
Aberdeen-Angus— As stated by Mr. Gordon, chief in- 



CONTENTS. IX 

spector of stock for Queensland, and others — Part IV. 
— The London and Christmas markets, 1885— Shows 
what is meant there by such terms as " Scots," "Polled 
Scots," " Black Polls " — For quality the best market in 
the world — Reports of all the live-stock journals stating 
that the Prime Scots are solely, wholely and entirely 
Polled Aberdeen-Angus, . - - . 137 



ADDENDA. 

A London Polled Aberdeen Society — The Breed extending 
its outposts far and near — Replacing other Breeds — 
Converts and adherents from rival breeds— Clement 
Stephenson — Hon. M. H. Cochrane — G. W. Henry — 
The Field and Judge Goodwin — "Comparative" tests of 
Agricultural Colleges exposed— Test of public sales — 
Sales of 1883, 1884, 1885, in favor of Angus— The last sale, 
Hon. M.H. Cochrane leads them all — The Aberdeen draws 
the premium at a dairy contest — Crossing — Polled bulls 
bought largely in Britain and Ireland for crossing on the 
other breeds — Mr.J.A.Cochrane's (Hillhurst) report — J.S. 
Goodwin — Testimony of high British authorities — Early 
maturity, by G. T. Turner, again — Chicago "stock yards" 
and other dealer's and butcher's opinions as to the breed 
"on foot" and "on block" — In the West — Tlie descendants 
of the Victoria Ranch Aberdeen Polled bulls — Mr. Wm. 
Watson, of Keillor, on the breed in the West — The 
"Dalmore" herd for New Mexico—This new herd a 
special feather in the Aberdeen Angus cap — The pur- 
chase of Gavenwood and Glenbarry herd by the Geary 
Bros., of Guelph, Ont.— Mr. R. C. Dye captivated by the 
Aberdeens, prefers them to his former love, the Jerseys, 
—CONCLUSION— Prof. Brown, Ont., and the breed the 
v/orld's new beefer — The Aberdeen " the coming steer" 
— Drover''s Journal and Farmer''s Beview on horns and 
dehorning—Horns not useful, and not ornamental — 
Hornless character says the National Live-Stock Journal: 
"the least of the good points of the Angus" — The breed 
"morally certain to win — "Competitors beware!" — 
Amencan Agriculturist declaration in favor of the breed— 
" Have won the confidence of America" and " the best 
breed of beef cattle in the wox'ld " — The grand general 



CONTENTS. 

summing up ot ilic American F;it Stock Show official 
report — Places the Aberdeen lirst. their grades second 
and "the field" to follow—'* Lastly," They are the chwiky 
sort that means business — Bibliogkai'Ht — The American 
Abekdeen-Angus Association— Ekkata, . . 145 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Alex. IIa.aisay, Esq., (From photograjih by JSIollat, 

Edinburgh, Scotland;, . . . Frontis])iece 

2. Ckoss-Bked Champion at Birmingham, 1884, (From 

London Live-Stock Journal), .... 53 

3. Aberdeen Beef, by A. M. Williams, London, (From 

Photograph by Wilson, Aberdeen, Scot.) . . 85 

4. Justice, (From London Lwe->S'^oc/i;JbwmaZ), . . 109 

5. Luxury, Birmingham and Smithlield Champion, 1885. 

(After London Live-Stock Journal.) 114 

6. Polled Head, Basuto, Tailpiece, . . . 142 



NTROUUCTION. 



To conform to the usages of polite society, this book may 
need an introduction, but the Angus Doddie introduces herself. 
No one who has seen the beautiful hornless head, intelligent 
eye, symmetrical form and velvety coat of an Angus Doddie, 
has ever waited for any formality before pressing to a closer 
acquaintance. 

The past decade has brought laurels enough to the polled ■ 
head to warrant the statement that the Aberdeen-Angus is, 
indeed, "The Breed that Beats the Record." From that 
day, in 1878, when Paris and his herd, and Judge, the "World 
Beater," carried away the highest honors at the Universal Expo- 
sition in Paris, down to the triumphant show-yard career of 
Luxury, in 1885, the star of Angus supremacy has never dimmed. 
They are no longer an " experiment " in America, but hold a 
front rank among the come-to-stay breeds. 

There is room for all improved breeds. Each one will have 
is warm supporters and earnest advocates. In the contest for 
supremacy, it is facts^ not talk, that counts, and this work offers 
an array of facts that cannot be controverted or passed over in 
silence. It establishes the following assertions : 

1st. That Angus cattle weigh as heavy as any other breed. 

2nd. That they mature as early. 

• 3rd. That they dress a larger per cent, of dead to live weight 
than any other breed 

4th. That they are a strong, hardy, vigorous race of cattle. 

5th. That they are ^s good, if not better, milkers than any 
other beef breed. i 



INTRODUCTION. 

6th. That, being polled, they are easier to handle, do less 
damage, require less room and conseqnentlj^ less 
money in handling. 
7th. That they are unsurpassed by any other breed for 

"crossing" or "grading up." 
8th. That they, alone, are the Prime Scots of the British and 

other market quotations. 
These facts alone show that they arc worthy of the pride and 
esteem in which they are held by their admirers, and should 
be enough to command careful attention to the following pages. 
To the knowing ones it is enough to say in conclusion, that 
the Scotch cattle are as good and true as Scotch hospital itj^ 
and more than that pen cannot write. 

JOHN S. GOODWIN, 

Beloit, Kansas. 



The Breed that Beats the Record. 



CHAPTER I. 

Native Habitat and Physical Conditions, 

HOME OF THE BREED. 

It will be sufficient for the present purposes of this 
work to confine our view to that group of counties 
generally, collectively called the north-eastern counties 
of Scotland. These are Forfarshire, formerly Angus- 
shire ; Kincardineshire (the southern part of which is 
*' The Mearns,'' the northern belonging to Mar) ; Aber- 
deenshire, comprehending most of Mar and Buchan, 
which two districts have several sub-divisions, such as 
Strathbogie, Formartin, Garioch, Alford, etc.; Banff- 
shire, which formerly was included in Buchan ; Moray 
and Nairn shires. Of these, Aberdeen is, of course, 
by far the largest, comprehending eighty-five parishes ; 
Forfar has fifty-five ; Kincardine twenty ; Banff twenty- 
five ; Elgin and Moray twenty-seven. 

Aberdeenshire is so large that this should be borne 
in mind by those studying the history of the breed in 
that county. This county consists of wide ''low-land" 



2 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

and '' high-land " regions — Buchan constituting nearly- 
all the former, with twenty-four parishes, Mar compre- 
hending the latter, and also including the parishes of 
Kincardineshire, drained by the Dee, and on the north 
side of the Grampians ; so that Aberdeenshire is con- 
stituted to-day by the chief parts of two ancient 
provinces, the wings of which have been separated 
from it. 

GEOLOGICAL FORMATION. 

The Grampian range forms the controlling physical 
feature of this region, running north to opposite Stone- 
haven and forming the Highland region within its 
irregular boundary. The Grampians consist of up- 
heaved granite — this distinguishing primitive formation 
coming there to the surface. Lower down, overlaying 
the granite, occur gneiss, mica-schist, quartz, limestone 
and clay-slate. Of such rocks does the greater part of 
the cultivated region of Aberdeenshire consist. In 
Kincardineshire, Forfarshire and Morayshire the old 
red sandstone exists in the " laichs." 



SOIL. 

The character of the soil varies. In Aberdeenshire, 
excepting in certain alluvial tracts, it is not naturally 
rich or fertile, consisting for the most part of a thin 
coating of vegetable mould resting on the coarse 
glacial or blue-clay. But by the most perfect cultiva- 
tion the soil has been brought to the highest pitch of 
productiveness, and grows great crops of turnips, oats 
and grass. Buchan is timberless ; but most of it was 
fertile in the earliest times, and so was Garioch. The 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 3 

former was the ''granary** and the latter was the 
"girnal" of the north. Morayshire was also named 
the Garden of Scotland. The soil in the " laich " of 
Moray is particularly responsive. In Mearns and For- 
farshire the soil is red clay, gravelly loam and " carse." 

CLIMATE. 

This depends on heat and moisture — -these, as need 
hardly be said, being in the northeast of Scotland, low 
and great. This means a '' wretched " climate. The 
mean temperature is low, from 40 degrees to 47 degrees, 
with a range of 10 degrees to 20 degrees above or below, 
for summer or winter. Proximity to the coast modifies 
the climate ; while distance inland from it, combined 
with altitude, tends greatly to intensify its severity. 
The rainfall is affected by the winds, which seem 
mostly to conspire to blow off the coast. The winds 
from the southwest, borne from the Atlantic, part 
with their moisture over the Grampians, before reach- 
ing the heart of Aberdeenshire. But the east and 
southeast winds, always cold and biting, are impreg- 
nated with moisture. The north winds are cold but 
dry, and are a God-send in a late, damp harvest — the 
great draw-back to Aberdeenshire agriculture. 

Rainfall varies with locality ; among the southwest 
mountains it is stated at 100 inches per annum ; in the 
middle of the country, 40 inches; in the valleys of the 
Dee and Don, and northeast lowland, 30 inches. 

CROPS. 

These are chiefly those needed in cattle feeding- 
yellow turnips and swedes ; grass, Italian rye, etc., 



4 THE BREED THAT BEATS TPIE RECORD. 

mixed with red and white clover — the latter growing 
almost naturally — and oats. Barley is grown very 
moderately, wheat hardly at all, in Aberdeenshire. 

In Moray, "The Mearns " and Forfar, wheat, bar- 
ley, potatoes, beans and peas are successfully cultivated. 
But in the cattle regions proper the chief crops are 
those first stated. The granite soil, indeed, is particu- 
larly adapted to grow these nutritiously. 



THE DISTRICT AS DESCRIBED BY A FOREIGNER. 

Baron L. de Fontenay, author of ''Le Betail en 
Eccossais," gives us an idea of what a foreigner thinks 
of the middle district of Aberdeenshire, where he was 
resident, as a student, for some years. " The country 
is moist and very windy. As to the temperature I can- 
not speak with precision, there having been absolutely 
no winter in 1858-9 in Scotland any more than in 
France. But I believe the thermometer does not fall so 
low as in Normandy. I found myself in the midst of 
mountains, the country in this direction being only a 
succession of hills and valleys. The valleys and hill- 
sides are cultivated ; the mountains are in part covered 
with Scots fir; their summits are barren and present on 
the surface only a short heath, often incapable of pro- 
ducing the least pasture for sheep. The soil is granitic 
and schistoic ; in some places are found soils entirely 
analogous to those of Bretagne." 

BY AN AMERICAN. 

In describing the influences of this climate upon 
shorthorns, Mr. Wm. Warfield says: "Away up in 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. $ 

Aberdeenshire, exposed to all the rigor of that extreme 
north, this herd (Mr. Amos Cruickshank's) has been for 
many years a grand example of what shorthorns may 
become in Scotland. I have never seen finer fleshed, 
larger framed, richer coated beasts anywhere than this 
herd. Scotland's eminence, as a beef producing 
country, is too well known to need any particular com- 
ment, and ' Prime Scots,' as the top quotation in 
English markets, is an old story. There is something 
singularly taking in the whole class of Scotch cattle. 
What blocky, low-down beasts they are ! You will be 
told anywhere in England, by feeders, that Scotch bred 
and fed cattle will go to the block in better form than 
any south of the border." Mr. Warfield also alludes 
to " the great capacity of all classes of animals 
bred in cold climates, to make peculiarly rapid and 
vigorous growth during the summer, a capacity shared 
by all nature, and the tendency to lay up fat, as if 
stored for the long winter's drain on the system. The 
effect of the bracing, invigorating air on the whole con- 
stitution, deepening the chest, filling out the form in 
every way needed to baf^e the winter's cold. Spring- 
ing from these, we find an active digestion, rapid 
assimilation and fine flesh producing qualities." These 
are the conditions of climate, in which the Polled 
Aberdeen-Angus have been reared from time imme- 
morial, and, as a result, we have this well defined type 
of cattle, having great substance, great aptitude to 
fatten, and of early maturity and hardiness ; to all of 
which reference will again be made. It is these native 
polls, remember, that constitute the prime of the 
"prime Scots" that have been regarded so long with 
such solicitous affection by Mr. Warfield and other 
eminent shorthorn men. 



O THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

AS DESCRIBED BY A NATIVE, AND BREEDER OF THE 
RIVAL ROAN. 

In the Breeder's Gazette, September loth, 1885, ap- 
peared an article '' From far-off Aberdeen — A Word 
from the Land of prime Butchers' Beasts," by the well 
known breeder of Aberdeenshire shorthorns. We are 
tempted to give it in full. The writer goes on the 
principle of the British newspaper editor, who ignores 
his esteemed contemporaries altogether, proceeding in 
his course as if they zvere not. The article is, however, 
so interesting and so full of point that by substituting 
here and there the words Polled Aberdeen for Shorthorn 
one will get a tolerably vivid realization of the natural 
conditions out of which the prime Aberdeen has 
arisen, like Aphrodite from the sea foam. If it has been 
so with the imported article — the shorthorn — how 
much more so must it be with the native Aberdeen, 
that, mind, has had no contamination with '' the poison" 
— as Aberdeen breeders regarded it — of the universal 
intruder : 

Sixty years ago the Northeast of Scotland grew little more 
either of beef or corn than was wanted for the comparatively 
scant population. The use of lime and bones and the draining 
of the laud opened the way for turnip culture, and now what 
was one of the poorest districts of the whole kingdom is one of 
the principal sources of meat supply of the linest quality. 
This has been brought about by the Shorthorn cross on the 
native breeds of cattle, and hence it has come to pass that 
the particular variety of Shorthorn known as the Aberdeen- 
shire Shorthorn has special interest for those who are opening 
out a new meat supply for the world. 

The breeders of Shorthorns in Aberdeenshire have been 
mainly men who had to pay a rent and make a living by their 
own exertions. They have not been theorists; circumstances 
have not been favorable to the formation of opinions in favor of 
line breeding or any other of the modern improvements of 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 7 

which so much was heard some ten years ago. The necessity 
of keeping a house over his head has prevented the Aberdeen- 
shire breeder from following the caprices of fashion; his cus- 
tomers have been men who were obliged to apply ruthlessly 
the test of utility. If a sire proved a bad one he must go, no 
matter how grandly his pedigree might look on paper; the 
calves would not sell, for they were to be used in producing 
beef, and if they could not do that the blood availed nothing. 
The blue-blooded weed for which there used to be a kindness 
in some directions was dreaded beyond everything; the very 
blueness of his blood made him the more dangerous. 

Aberdeenshire is a cold, bleak country; there is very little 
timber, fences are formed of stone walls, and there is a chilli- 
ness and rawness in the east wind which is more trying than 
the cold of the western plains. The soil is, generally speak- 
ing, poor; indeed, no part of the world where improved cattle 
thrive is it so poor. No sort of life which is not unusually 
vigorous will survive, and hence the cattle bred in such a 
countrjr must be hardy. The weed, blue-blooded or otherwise, 
is improved out of existence by the hard conditions of its life. 
Constitution has thus become the first necessity with the Aber- 
deenshire breeder, and as all other parts of the globe where 
cattle live are more suitable to animal life the Aberdeenshire 
Shorthorn takes kindly to exile and is the best colonist of his 
kind. 

The making of beef has been the trade of the district. What 
every farmer wanted was a heavily-fleshed sire, and thus next 
to constitution the demand has been for this type of animal 
which has most aptitude for turning its food rapidly into beef. 
But besides all this, the farmer as a man of business had to look 
to the amount of the turnover of his capital and the quickness 
with which it could be effected. Two generations ago a man 
was satisfied to feed off an ox at four years old; twenty-five 
years ago many thought they did well to finish their cattle at 
three years; now all aim at feeding off at from twenty to thirty 
months old. Thus a demand for early maturity arose. The 
stamp of animal which looks shabby at two years but grows 
into a fair cow at six or seven is of no use; our cattle must be 
useful both when young and old. And as the three leading 
characteristics of the Aberdeenshire Shorthorn are nothing 
mor-e than the outcome of the necessity of the district and its 
inhabitants, we must have (1) constitution, (2) a tendency to 
carry a great weight of beef, and (3) a capability of early matur- 
ity, otherwise we can neither pay our rents nor make a living. 



8 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

It will be observed that nothing has been said about style, 
completeness of form, and purity of blood. To take the last 
point first, no one believes more firmly in the value of pedigree 
and purity of blood than the Aberdeenshire breeder. But he 
does not judge of the value of ancestry by its limitation to any 
particular strain; he values a pedigree in proportion to the 
known excellence of its representatives, and this excellence 
must be an existing fact of to-day, and not a matter of history 
or tradition more or less ancient. No tribe can live on its 
laurels in Aberdeenshire unless they are freshly won, but when 
a race of cattle can show a long record — not of show-yard suc- 
cesses — but of practical usefulness, and when that record is 
known to be still a growing one, the Aberdeenshire breeder will 
yield to no one in his appreciation ,of its value. Nor is he care- 
less as to form and style; but here again the form and style 
which is valued is that which indicates the possession of the 
practical points of beef and milk producing. Well-sprung ribs 
and a broad chest are necessities for health; deep thighs; a well 
filled twist, a thickly covered loin, and finely formed bones, are 
required by the butcher, and as all farmers know that a good 
cow must be a good milker, the udder and milk vein are never 
overlooked without serious loss of usefulness and reputation. 

The necessity of economj'' and the conviction that natural 
conditions are the most healthy prevent the use of any artificial 
food among matured cattle. Turnips and oat straw in winter 
and grass in summer suffice to keep the animals in health. The 
calves generally suck their dams, and a considerable quantity'' of 
milk is taken from the cows besides. 

The animals which are the outcome of the severe conditions 
under which everything lives in this harsh country have proven 
themselves pioneers; in the States, in Canada, and in South 
America they have been tried. In their old home they have 
been hardy, vigorous rent-payers, and in their new homes they 
have already been equally successful. 



HOW THESE ABERDEENSHIRE SHORTHORNS CAME INTO 
EXISTENCE. 

Perhaps the above was written anent the following 
item in the same paper, headed "Aberdeenshire Short- 
horns :" 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 9 

"A writer in one of our London exchanges (evi- 
dently an Angus breeder) makes the following allusion 
to the practice followed by the early breeders of Short- 
horns in Aberdeenshire which may be of interest to 
those of our readers who admire the Scotch cattle. 
He says : * The Aberdeenshire breeders have indeed 
treated the shorthorn as they did the native poll in 
the early days — put that and that together, which 
they, in their accurate judgment, foresaw would not 
only nick, but produce the best stamp of beast foi 
sacrificing at the shambles. If the local native poll 
did not help to fnould them, they had their type re- 
flected in them to a degree. Mr. Cruickshank began 
his breeding career on the native poll, but soon gave 
his entire allegiance to the Teeswater, and has been the 
chief breeder to originate the Aberdeenshire short- 
horns.' " The eminent breeder just previously quoted 
indicates as much. All this is but a grand testimony 
to the backbone-giving character of Aberdeen-Angus 
"blood." 



FROM THE FOREGOING AN ERROR CORRECTED. 

Like the natives of the genus homo of the same 
region who have proven themselves such excellent 
colonizers, ''pioneers," so have the native bovines most 
pre-eminently ; so that such remarks as the following 
by that well known French authority, M. de la Tre- 
honnais, require comment : " It is true that the 
Angus breed, notwithstanding its grand qualities from 
a beef point of view, is little known and less cared for 
in France. For my part, I do not know more than one 
breeder who would ha^^-e been eccentric enough to have 
attempted to constitute and estabhsh a herd of Angus 



lO THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

cattle in our midst under conditions of soil and climate 
which are as adverse as can be imagined to the temper- 
ament and requirements of the breed. Angus cattle 
are not cosmopolitan, as shorthorns are. They have 
climateric, hygienic, and alimentary peculiarities which 
belong to them exclusively. It is on this account that 
although the breed is highly esteemed in England, as 
furnishing excellent meat, no breeder outside Scotland 
tries to acclimatise it ; and even in Scotland is is only 
in the county of Aberdeen that the Angus breed is 
found [! I Few breeds amongst cattle are more exclu- 
sively localised than is this one." 

Thus has a foreigner learned of the cattle that have 
become world famous! — Localized! Why! after the 
shorthorn it is the most " cosmopolitan" breed in Britain, 
as all the show-yards in the three kingdoms testify. 
And still they do not miss the climateric, hygienic and 
alimentary peculiarities of Aberdeenshire. Neither are 
the peculiarities of climate, housing or feeding of their 
native place missed in America. This is the old foible 
that we used to hear about its being the turnips and 
straw, the climate and soil, in fact the air and the water 
too, that have made the prime Polled Scots in Aber- 
deenshire. Look at them in rich England, grassy 
Ireland, and corn and prairie America — as the sequel 
will abundantly prove! 

HEAR WHAT MR. STETHEXSOX HAS TO SAV. 

Tills now very eminent breeder and exhibitor of 
Aberdeens, says : " Some of my friends questioned 
if these cattle would do as well in this part of 
the country as they did in the North of Scotland, 
while others affirmed, (juite confidentl)', that they 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. II 

were the breed of a particular locality, and would not 
suit this district. After what every one must admit 
has been -a fair trial, it affords me more and more 
pleasure to show my herd to judges of stock ; and 
every one who has seen them will bear me out when I 
say that in Northumberland we can grow them as big, 
if not bigger, and breed them as truly, as they can do 
in the North of Scotland." 



12 



CHAPTER II. 

The Bucolic Ideal. 

THE OUTWARD FEATURES OF THE TYPICAL ANIMAL. 

Mr. McCombie, in his '' Cattle and Cattle Breeders," 
thus describes his ideal animal : '' A perfect breeding 
or feeding animal should have a fine expression of 
countenance. I could point it out, but it is difficult to 
describe on paper. It should be mild, serene and ex- 
pressive. The animal should be fine in the bone, with 
clean muzzle, a tail like a rat ; and not ewe-necked ; 
short on the legs. He should have a small, well put on 
head, prominent eye, a skin not too thick nor too thin ; 
should be covered with silky hair to the touch like a 
lady's glove ; should have a good belly to hold his 
meat ; should be straight backed, well ribbed up and 
well ribbed home ; his hook bones should not be too 
wide apart. The wide hooked animal, especially a 
cow after calving, always has a vacancy between the 
hook bones and the tail, and a want of the most valu- 
able part of the carcass. I detest to see hook bones 
too wide apart ; they should correspond with the other 
proportions of the body. A level line should run from 
hook to tail. He should be well set on at the tail, free 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 3 

of patchiness there and all over, with deep thighs, that 
the butcher may get his second round and prominent 
brisket ; deep in the fore rib, with a good purse below 
him, which is always worth £1 to him in the London 
market ; well fleshed in the fore-breast, with equal 
covering of fine flesh all over his carcass, so valuable to 
the butcher. His outline ought to be such that if a 
tape is stretched from the fore-shoulder to the thigh 
and from the back to the extremity, there the line 
should lie close, with no vacancies, and without a void ; 
the line should fill from the hook to the tail. From the 
shoulder-blade to the head should be well filled up, as 
we say, good in the neck vein. These remarks as to 
the quality and proportions a beast should possess are 
set down, and not in good order, just as they struck me 
at the time. Thick legs, thick skin and bristly hair, 
always point to sluggish feeders." 

Looking at the animal broadside, from the poll and 
crops to the tail, should be " straight as a rash," the 
neck in the female should only rise if at all, very 
slightly from the top-line level, in the male, v/ith a 
more prominently rounded crest. In fact, we like to 
see the head projecting out on a direct level with the 
back in both sexes. The underline should be straight 
and parallel to the top line, with a prominent angled, 
keel-like brisket. In the female a neat umbilicus and 
full milk vessel are attractive. The tail-head should 
be neatly packed away ; and there should appear 
no daylight between the tail and the buttocks — the tail 
should hang close. The neck should be small, with 
such an appearance that there is " none at all ; " clean 
head, carved and bloody looking, with no coarseness. 
There should be no throatiness or dewlap. Such, in- 
deed, reminds one of the old Italian-Spanish, or Zebu 



14 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

races, and indicates slow feeding qualities. Bone 
should be fine and smooth, limbs short and clean ; feet 
small. Viewed from behind the animal should look as 
if he was a complete cylinder, with no vacancy, but a 
barrel from end to end ; the rounded spring from the 
spine, enclosing, in an evenly covered contour, all the 
parts of the body. There should be no prominences, 
but the surface smoothed off all over, behind and be- 
fore the hooks, and behind and before the shoulder, the 
line should have no hollow — the same from flank and 
fore flank. In such an animal the depth and width 
through buttock and heart will satisfy the most exact- 
ing. Everywhere, well filled all over, no gaudiness, 
.but " as even from end to end as an egg.'' 

When the hand is applied to the body it will come in 
contact with a well covered frame — no hard or sharp 
bones should be felt. The hand will sink evenly in- 
ward and move freely as if on the softest cushion. 
The pile will feel soft and skin and under skin will im- 
palpably come together in the fingers and retire. The 
palm will float the superficial integument over the 
deeper covering. This magical touch indicates quality 
forever. *' Beef from the lug to the heel " — tallowed 
within, with not an ounce of waste anywhere, the per- 
fect beast stands on the shortest of legs before you. 

T/ie eye should be projecting, bright, quietly active 
and observant. It was such an eye as the gods gave 
Juno. It should be very full and its surrounding orbit 
should be prominently cushioned in the head. The 
lids wide, with no bushy eyelashes, but these long and 
fine, not obscuring the visual organs. Between the 
eyes the forehead should be broad, but from this up- 
ward it should run to a high peak or poll, which 
should have a tuft (sometimes "bald" with rubbing) 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 5 

and a distinct pit behind that will hold the fore fiingers. 
Everywhere the head should be clean and chilselled 
and the skin smooth and glistening. The ears should 
be well set on — the broad rounded 'Tan" rising above 
the neck where they are laid tightly back in their 
natural docile position. They should not, in the high- 
blooded, droop — even though lop-earedness might be 
thought a humel-doddie feature. The rounded fan 
should be hairy, the inside of a bright, waxy orange. The 
muzzle large but not coarse, dewy-healthy, the under 
chin prominent, a delicate pink nostril, and " sweet 
breathed." 

LOOK AT THE POLLED CROWN CAREFULLY. 

Such a head as we have described — and which is the 
natural one — will not exhibit any trace of scurs. 
These are no evidence of impurity : they are, like 
beauty, skin deep. It is needless to impress every 
breeder with the necessity of not using males with the 
least symptom of these, to any pure bred female. In 
fact, every male showing such symptoms should be 
steered. 

COLOR AND PILE. 

The standard color is black. This is the simple re- 
sult of a fancy of the early improvers, hence it became 
a fashion and that rules rigidly and fantastically. 

By the early breeders it was thought that black was 
the healthiest and hardiest color — that white or light 
shades were more delicate. They seemed to have some 
authority for this. M. Paul Marchal in Revue Scienti- 
fique, thus writes : '' The intensity of coloration is 
generally proportioned to vital activity. ^ -5^ * * 



l6 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

Breeders prefer animals rich in pigment matter, because 
they will resist disease, and most easily accommodate 
themselves to special systems of feeding. The an- 
cients regarded animals having white hair on a black 
skin as the most vigorous. White parts of animals are 
often attacked with disease, while the other parts re- 
main healthy ; and light skinned animals are most 
troubled by flies and parasites." ( Popular Science 
MontJily^ November, 1885.) The above is worth care- 
ful study by breeders. But black has not always been 
the general color, even among the Aberdeen-Angus. 
We find, besides black, brown, red or yellow, and dun 
were the normal colors of the breed at the beginning 
of the century. Dr. Skene Keith, 181 1, says: "the 
colors which are considered as good are brown, blacky 
brindle or dun, if not too white." Dun, it is interest- 
ing to note, was the color of the fairy cattle ( which it 
would seem also were polled), of the mediaeval, super- 
stitious Scot. Mr. Headrick, in the Survey of Angus, 
1813, gives the colors as ''dark brown, or black, or 
brown brindled with black. A few white spots, as they 
give the animal a showy appearance, are not objected 
to. But if a great proportion of the animal be white, 
and if, in place of brown or black spots, she be dotted, 
or variegated with blue, she is universally disesteemed. 
They also prefer these animals with a shaggy but soft 
pile, as they are best adapted to endure the rigors of win- 
ter. But the pile of these animals increases with the 
cold to which they are exposed." Speaking of pile, it 
should be noted that there are two coats in the Aberdeen- 
Angus — an under, soft, close, mossy, seally layer, and 
an upper and longer, silky, thick and flowing fur. When 
full grown, in winter, this stands up between the spread 
fingers ; the pile is so rich and thick the form is almost 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 17 

completely obscured and the animal might be mistaken, 
with such an overcoat, "for a bear." The hair should 
be of the softest, long and silky, but not hard, wiry, 
stiff or curly. As the hide enters into the composition 
of the pile, we observe that this item, in the ofificial 
tests of the Chicago fat stock show, weighs least of any 
breed, and it is therefore curious to observe that in the 
Aberdeen market the ''polled " hides bring id. per lb. 
more than the '' horned." 



CONNECTION WITH ANCIENT URUS ACCOUNTING FOR 
VARIATION. 

It is a well-established fact, the proof of which we 
need not here go into, that the wild white Urus, which 
has still its descendants in the Hamilton Park polled 
cattle,* roamed over the north-eastern peninsula of 
Scotland. Indeed, the present Aberdeens inherited 
many characteristics from the former. Among such 
inheritances is the variation in color. A little white 
has never been disliked if properly placed on the under 
line. 

THE YELLOW — '' SILVER-YELLOW." 

This color, as already seen, was a thoroughly pure 
color. In fact, Bowie and FuUerton used to declare it 
was the purest. A bad red is never seen, and a red 



*"Cadzo Castle, Lanarkshire, the seat of the Duke of Ham- 
ilton, with its park, originally formed part of the great Cale- 
donian forest, where King Robert Bruce, according to tradition, 
hunted the wild bull, in 1330, and where, two centuries later, 
James IV., of Scotland, indulged in the same wild sport." — 
J. E. Harting, F.L.S., F.Z.S.— " British Extinct Animals," p. 299. 



I8 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

never breeds a bad one. Among some classes of 
breeders on this side there would be a decided prefer- 
ence given to *' Red Polled Angus " — Hon. M. H. 
Cochrane, indeed, has been endeavoring to establish a 
herd of this kind. He has now eleven head of females, 
and has just bred a red bull of high blood to eventually 
top the herd. He exhibited some of them in Canada, 
last fall, and they were much admired. Others have 
also been experimenting in the same direction. But 
black and bonnie — sleek, sealy, smooth and shiny — is the 
best looking: 

All that you wish thaVs good and comely ^ 
Shines forth supreme in black and humly. 

'' THE BLACK POLLS WILL FILL THE LAND LIKE THE 
. BLACK HOGS." 

The following remarkable observations from the 
Rural Alma7iac (The Field office, London, 1882), on 
the subject of ** black," are of such interest as to be 
worthy of place here. 

The wonderful prices made in the north-east of the island 
for the Aberdeen Polls, and in the west for Horned Welsh cat- 
tle ; in the south and the midlands for Blackfaced sheep and 
Berkshire pigs, indicate a general leaning to the belief that 
blackest skins must mean priraest meat. Now, it is a fact — a 
noteworthy one — that white points do coincide with greater size 
and coarser fibres, and that the dark gray or black points 
do accompany shorter fibre in flesh and compacter forms. 
How far this tendency can be traced we do not know ; it is a 
subject which requires a Darwin to deal with it. But that there 
is connection between color and condition of carcass — and 
perhaps with flavor — seems quite certain. And public opinion 
— that instinctive, fitful, blind groping in search of absolute 
truth, which is continually escaping from the grasp- -just at 
present is compelling both Great and Greater Britain, in making 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. I9 

purchases, to prefer black live stock. It should be said that this 
inclination to play rouge-et-noir with cattle, and to put the 
money down on the black, is not wholly without a justification. 
The black breeds have made a real advance in recent years ; 
and, perhaps, a greater proportional advance than breeds of 
any color. 



BLACK THE RESULT OF FANCY. 

In the case of Aberdeen breeders, they began to 
prefer the " niggers," thinking they were the hardiest 
and best beefers. This grew into a " craze," and thence 
into a fashion, and that settled the matter ever after. 
The Aberdeen Polled men determined to stick to one 
of their normal colors, the same as if the Shorthorn 
men had adhered to an unbroken red, a constant roan, 
or a whole white. In either case one or the other 
would, undoubtedly, less or more frequently appear. 

" Black " cattle has been the common term to 
describe the bovine species generally in Britain. But 
some have suspected that " black " does not refer to 
color at all, but is a modification of the word block 
cattle, cattle for the butcher', in contradistinction to 
" cattle" for draught — horses, these being in old times 
also called "cattle." 

Black cattle, however, were, from the earliest times, 
most generally esteemed, along with the dark reds and 
browns. Varro, and others, preferred them ; and we 
find our own early writers did so likewise. " Compil- 
ers of cattle works repeat, one after another, that the 
best English oxen and cows -^ ^ ^ are generally 
black'' (Lawrence, On Cattle, 1805). Markham (who 
flourished in good Queen Bess's time) said of these 
black cattle, "■ they whose blackness is purest, and their 
hair like velvet, are best esteemed." This breed, says 



20 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

Lawrence, '' is probably the same as in some parts of 
Scotland," in his day. 

SAMPLES. 

The following description from the '^ Herd Notes " 
of the Banffshire Journal, for January 19, 1886, may 
be read with interest as being curiously similar to some 
of the foregoing ideals : 

There has just been presented to the Banff Museum (made 
famous by Thomas Edwards, F.L.S., and Dr. Smiles' book), the 
head of a very beautiful young polled cow. This fine cow, 
which was bred and owned by Mr. Hannay, Gavenwood, was 
one of the family of Pride of Aberdeen, being Pride of Aberdeen 
26th (4560) ; but her pet name in the herd with her breeder was 
Lady Paramount, a name which was very well merited. This 
fine young cow died in February of last year. Lady Paramount 
was characterised by exceeding sweetness of disposition, beauty 
of countenance and neck, with the true Pride ear superbly set, 
immense substance on the finest of bone, the touch being vel- 
vety, hair long and abundant, and skin like a lady's glove. 

The Illustrated Journal of Agriculture, of Montreal, 
gave an account of the Rougemont Polled cattle, which 
said the marvel of the herd was Judge, the polled bull 
bred at Ballindalloch : 

He is the same that won the first prize of his class at the Paris 
Exhibition of 1878, where the same breed won the championship 
of the world. Judge is a remarkably fine specimen of his tribe. 
His measurement is as follows : Girth behind the shoulder, 
79 inches ; length from point of shoulder to setting on of tail, 
66 inches. His length is prodigious. There is no waste about 
him, and the thickness of his rounds of beef, his masculine head, 
his rich coat, level crops, and his wonderful hide have no more 
bone to support them than is absolutely necessary. H[is touch 
is like that of a very well bred Shorthorn. 

il 
This remarkable bull died in the possession of Judge 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 21 

J. S. Goodwin, of Beloit, Kansas, who is quite a patron 
of the Polls. Mr. Goodwin had the head preserved. 

The Smithfield, 1879, " i"eserve " for the champion- 
ship, a Scotch polled heifer, was, I observe, described 
thus : '' Her shoulders were covered to perfection, 
giving her the appearance of having no neck." 

An account of Mr. Stephenson's heifer, of 1884, thus 
hits her off: '' Were the hind legs to be cut off at the 
hocks, the forelegs just above the knees, and the head 
at the throat latch, the entire animal might be packed 
into and would fill a rectangular box of proper 
dimensions. " 

COMPARISON WITH THE FIRST BOVINE STANDARD, 
WRITTEN 600 B. C. 

The above descriptions may be, with interest, com- 
pared with that given by the first to compose a scale of 
bovine points — Mago, the Carthaginian, who may be 
correctly termed the father of bucolic literature. Mago 
lived 600 B.C., and his writings were much admired by 
all the early Latin writers. Varro, Columella, and Pal- 
ladius copied his description as the standard authority : 
" The oxen that we should procure should be young, 
square formed, with large limbs, high, strong, black 
horns, forehead broad and curly, ears rough, eyes and 
lips black, nostrils turned up and wide, neck long and 
muscular, dewlap large, reaching nearly to the knees, 
chest broad, shoulders large, belly roomy, and as it 
were filling out {1?arrel shaped), flanks extended, loins 
broad, back straight and even, or slightly depressed, 
haunches {buttocks) round, legs compact and straight, 
but rather short than long, knees moderate, hoofs large, 
tail very long and hairy, the hair of the whole body 



12 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

thick and short, the color red or dark brown, and the 
whole body very soft to the touch or handle." " Cer- 
tainly a very tidy ox, whether he be purchased in 
Lybia, in the year 600 B. c, or in Northamptonshire, 
A. D. 1850." It is a description that for twenty-five 
hundred years has been copied with less or more varia- 
tion, representing many grotesque burlesques on the 
typical bovine form. And down to a century ago, and 
everywhere, except in Britain, where necessity devel- 
oped a new type — a more trim pattern — it would satisfy 
the idea of naturalism, which is the embodiment of 
Prof. G. T. Brown's muscular maturity advocacy."^" 



*"Life on the Farm. — Animal Life"; by Prof. G. T. Brown 
(Chief of the Agricultural Department of the Privy Council) : 
Bradbury, Agnew & Co., Bouverie St., Strand, London. 



^3 



CHAPTER III. 

The Milky Way, 

DAIRY PROPERTIES. 

The first thing that brought the Aberdeen Polled 
into notoriety was the famous dairy properties of the 
dams. The Buchan cattle were sought out on account 
of this fame. That had spread all over the North, 
where they were wanted *' for the purpose of the 
dairy" by such men as the late Sir John Sinclair, Bart., 
chairman of the Board of Agriculture, and projector 
of the Statistical and Agricultural Surveys of the 
Counties, the Duke of Richmond, and others. Aber- 
deenshire was then a great exporter of butter, and it 
commanded the highest price per lb. in the Edinburgh 
markets. The export was chiefly from Buchan. The 
Buchan cows were equal, according to Youatt, to the 
Ayrshires, as milkers, a sufficient proof of their claims 
on this head ; while the richness of the milk was far 
superior. 

SOME RECORDS. 

The following record, for season 1845, i^ taken from 
the Scottish Farmer^ May, 1846. It relates to the 



24 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

COWS of such a show herd as that of Robert Walker, 
Portlethen, and will give some idea of the milking 
qualities of this breed of beef cattle : 

The following account of the yield of milk last season in 
twelve dairy cows has been furnished to us by a well-known 
breeder of this race of cattle, Mr. Robert Walker, Portlethen. 
The yield is given in Scotch pints ; a Scotch pint, we may ex- 
plain to our English readers, is equal to about three imperial 
pints : 

Pints. Remarks. 

Brownmouth, 7 years old 3024. .has had twin calves three 

times and been but once 
dry since she calved first, 
October, 1839. 

AucHLUNiES, 8 years old 2931. .gained the second prize as 

a dairy cow at Aberdeen 
in 1845. 

Lady, 6 years old 2388. .pure Angus breed, by Mr. 

Mustard. 

Mustard, 6 years'old 2388. . a good breeder. 

CowiE, 7 years old 2388. .has twice had twin calves. 

Young Duchess, 3 years old. . .1741. first calf. 

Young Collbonie, 3 years old. 1561. .first calf. 

Young Pityot, 4 years old 1500. .second calf. 

Efpie, 7 years old 2020. .has had seven calves. 

Duchess, 11 years old .1830. .the disputed cow at Aber- 
deen, 1844. 

Queen o' May, 4 years old 1800. .second calf. 

Young Brownmouth, 3yrsold.l530. .first calf. 

The above cows are all black or brown polled, of the Aber- 
deen or Angus breed, and fonr of them gave milk until they 
calved this year, 1846. Their milk is of the best quality, and in 
general they are good butter cows. The above twelve are the 
best milkers selected from seventeen. 

Of recent breeders, the only one who, owning a 
crack show herd, determining at the same time not to 
miss the dairy qualities, was the late Lord Airlie, K. T. 
Whenever he made a private purchase of a cow, he 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 25 

was particular that she was a deep milker. This is the 
result, as given by his lordship to the North British 
Agriculturist, December 26, 1879 • " ^ have at present 
seventeen pure polled Angus milch cows in my dairy 
The greater number of these give twelve to fourteen, 
and sometimes sixteen, Scotch pints for a considerable 
time after calving. The milk is admitted to be much 
richer than that of either the Shorthorn or the Ayr- 
shire. As regards the length of time for which they 
will continue to give milk, my cow, Belle of Airlie, 
(1959), dam of Belus (749), used to be milked all the 
year round. Last year, when I was away from home, 
they left off milking her about a month before she 
calved, and she died of milk fever, induced, as I believe, 
by the circumstance that she had not been relieved of 
her superabundant milk. The cow. Miss MacPherson, 
of the Erica tribe, is now giving six Scotch pints a day, 
more than nine and a half months after calving." 
Later he reported having some cows giving as much as 
twelve Scots pints, or eighteen English pints, daily, 
though over three months calved. 

Adverting to this subject, an authoritative correspond- 
ent to an American journal, in describing some sales 
of herds of Aberdeen Polled cattle, which breed had 
been '* almost exclusively bred for the fat stock market," 
wrote, June, 1881 : ''But it is pleasing to be able to 
point to at least one herd of polled cattle, as an instance 
of how possible it is to cultivate successfully the dairy 
properties of Aberdeen-Angus cattle. The herd re- 
ferred to is one which was founded, in 1848, by the late 
Colonel Gordon, of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, and which 
has been carried on very successfully since that to the 
present time. The main aim that was kept in view in 
building up the herd, was to obtain, through careful 



26 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

selection, a race of animals that were likely to prove 
useful in the dairy ; and as the cattle were not forced 
for show-yard purposes, this ideal was realized more 
successfully, perhaps, than in any other polled herd in 
this country. "" '" "''" Without exception the cows 
were heavy milkers, having beautiful udders aud great 
milk veins." 

BUCHAN PRIME IN BUCHAN RHYME. 

The follo\\'ing, in the broad Ikichan dialect, may 
amuse some American Caledonians. The lines are by 
Mr. Colin Macpherson, of Dundee, Forfarshire: 

I'd ance a Buchan coo, 
As black's a craw, an' better too, 
Than ony Ayrshire that e'er cam' 
Frae oot the Wast or Buckingham, 
Or ony shire, I'm safe to sware, 
Her like I never will see mair ; 
Her hide was saft as velvet silk, 
An' fourteen pints o' guid thick milk 
She ga'ed me ilka day for lang, 
An' what was better, by my snug, 
The hale yeer ronn' — she ne'er gaed yeal I 
Ye need na lauch, my crusty chiel ; 
As true as ever hoves were halv'd 
She milkit till tlie week she calv'd. 
They're mair than me can tell the same, 
Tiie Buchan kye were kye o' fnme. 
My neebor man, aiild Geordie Garrow, 
Had ane for twal years ne'er fell farrow. 
An' wi' her baith did ])loo an harrow. 
She wrocht her wark and milkit weel — 
Some foppish farmers ca'd him fell ; 
But, saul, he had mair sense than them 
An' keut the worth o' his black gem. 
He let them see that his coo Keat, 
Baith wrocht an' milkit for her meat, 
(^orguid black Buchan kv(\ all, man ! 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 2J 

Were breeders rare an' milkers gran'. 
I've seen a new fa'n Biichan's calf 
Far bigger tlian ane an' a-half 
()' ony Ayrsliire e'er ye saw — 
The Bnchan kye naue can misca. 



RICHNESS OF THE MILK. 

The annual value of the dairy produce from Buchan, 
in 1810, was ^20,000 ($100,000). The richness of the 
milk is very great. Baron de Fontenay, an observer of 
the breed for several years, declared that the milk was 
equal, if not superior, to that of the Brittany cow — and 
she is the producer of the richest milk in the world. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

These milking qualities were, however, to be obliter- 
ated by the other even rarer qualities of extra beefing 
that the breed possessed, and that were to become the 
more favored by the breeders. The deep milking quality 
was the foundation, however, of the improvement 
towards the beefy supremacy. It still is the founda- 
tion of its proclivity to precocious maturity. The pro- 
perty is, therefore, strongly inherent, and if the breeders 
want to have herds of dairy polls the attainment of 
their desires would be an easy matter — as was found by 
the determined Lord Airlie. Strains of milkers could 
easily be established, that would not impair the beefing 
qualities of the produce. But the property is not 
generally cultivated ; in fact, it is not now generally 
wanted. It would not pay owners of high-class herds 
to starve their calves for the sake of a few pints of 
extra milk — even if they had the best ways of doing 



28 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

with it. Treated as beef cattle, the western ranchman 
has a breed that is quite satisfactory in all that regards 
lacteal development, in that the dams have plenty of 
milk to feed their calves successfully, and are easily 
dried. 

The following are three quotations from an article 
that appeared lately in the Daily Free Press, Aber- 
deen, Scotland, coincidentally with an article on the 
same subject in an American journal, and may be 
taken as confirmatory to the above. The remarks relate 
to the native Polled cattle of the county : 

(i). Though our cattle breeders are apt to imagine 
that their pursuit of improving stock is quite a modern 
thing, it was pur sited, and pursued with intelligence, 
before the middle of last century. 

(2). While they had regard to "points" bearing on 
fattening, they did not overlook those that bore on 
milking qualities. 

(3). The other evening it was my privilege to have 
under my roof a gentleman formerly well known as a 
breeder of Shorthorns in the north, though now farm- 
ing independently elsewhere. And amongst other 
points that came under discussion, I had the satisfac- 
tion to find that he held as strongly as myself, that 
Aberdeenshire breeders, as a rule, had erred greatly in 
neglecting the milking qualities of improved stock in 
working up to their beef ideal. This gentleman's 
opinion is, on every ground, of far greater weight than 
mine. 



29 



CHAPTER IV. 



Vigor. 



BREEDING QUALITIES. 



The breed is very prolific. Tlie cows are roomy;* 
they are milky and good fosterers. Twins and twin 
producing families are not uncommon. Triplets are 
by no means rare. Mr. J. G. Walker, Portlethen, exhib- 
ited at the centenary show at Edinburgh, 1884, of the 
Highland Society, triplet heifers, named Asia, Africa, 
and Australia, which created much interest. Dr. 
Fleming, the head of the British Veterinary Depart- 
ment, in his great work, '^ Veterinary Obstetrics," 
quotes the unique record of a Buchan polled cow on 
the farm of Balfluig, Alford, which produced twenty- 
five calves in six years, of which she produced seven 
in one year. Though seven of the twenty-five did 
not come to maturity, an average of three calves per 
year did.* Cases of heifer calves being accidentally got 



* Quoted from " Veterinary Manual" ; by James McGillivray, 
M.R.C.V.S., L. & E., Rayne : Aberdeen, 1861.— p. 280 : " I shall 
record what I believe to be an unique case of a calf-producing 
cow. ' Memorandum regarding a small cow of the black polled 
breed, which belonged to the late Mr. Alexander Stephen, Farm- 
ton, Alford : 



30 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

in calf occasionally occur, and they have no difficulty in 
calving, as yearlings. One year a breeder had twcnt)'- 
seven qiicys served, three being yearlings. Only two 
broke service, which were easily made fat ; the other 
twenty-one all produced calves the following year. 
Bulls have been in active service up till thirteen and 
eighteen years old. Hugh Watson's Old Grannie (i) 
lived to be thirty-six years old — the greatest age to which 
a bovine ever attained — and produced twenty-five 
calves ; " Black Meg" was slaughtered by the butcher at 
twenty years old, and was " good beef." Charlotte 
(203) was slaughtered when eighteen years old. One 
of Mr. Ferguson's Princess cows was exliibited at the 
Highland Society Show when twenty-one years old. 
Ruth (1169) went to the butcher at eighteen, having 
been a splendid breeder; and Mr. Anderson lately 
wrote that " the dealer who purchased her declared 
she did not look more than twelve," which statement 
was corroborated by Mr. Robert Bruce, Great Smeaton, 
Northallerton. 

CONSTITUTION. 

These facts prove the vigor of their constitution. 



Year. Number of Calves at a biith. 

1842 1— Ihst calf. 

1843 3-came to maturity ; ] . j^^ ^^^^^ 

1843 4- one died; . i 

1844 2 — came to maturity. 

1845 3 — came to maturity. 

184G G — died prematurely. 

1847 2 — came to maturity. 

1848 4. 

" ' One of the above queys was sold for breeding, and produced 
twins at first calving. The cow w^as sold at Mr. Stepiien's roup 
(auction), to General Bj-res, of Touley, Tongh. She had one 
calf when in his possession.'" 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 3 1 

Mr. T. W. Harvey, of Turlington, Nebraska, writes: 
" The constitution of the Aberdeen-Angus is hardy. 
They seem to retain the ruggedness of their Highland 
progenitors, and to have been bred to develop the best 
feeding qualities. In our importation, we found, after 
bringing them West, that they did not lose, as most 
animals do, and have to become acclimated, but from 
the day of their arrival seemed to thrive and grow- 
We noted, also, the length of time they could be kept 
on one pasture, and that, perhaps, a pasture that had 
been exhausted by other cattle. They seemed to have 
an extraordinary nutritive system, requiring compara- 
tively little food, and appropriating and thriving on it, 
with very little waste. They seem subject to few sick- 
nesses, and I have not observed them to show any sen- 
sitiveness to the extremes of either the heat or cold of 
our climate." 



SUPERIOR TO THE HARDENING CONDITIONS UNDER 
WHICH THEV HAVE BEEN REARED. 

That well informed journal, the Fanner s Review, 
October 13. I084, said: "It can be claimed for the 
Aberdeen-Angus, and it has been proved, that they are 
second to none for early maturity and hardiness of con- 
stitution. """ "■ '" In hardiness of constitution they 
are the acknowledged breed in the uplands of Banff 
and Aberdeen, where the Shorthorns could not live. 
-;f -jf '/, There is a wonderful difference between the 
cold blasts of the north-eastern counties of Scotland 
and the moist climate of the west coasts — man or beast 
that can stand the north-east of Scotland blasts can 
winter anywliere." 

It has been asserted that the cattle are closely 



32 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

housed during winter in Aberdeenshire. Now, this 
is a half truth. Where that has been done, it 
has only been for economy. It must argue a 
specially vigorous constitution that could, after 
such a winter's housing, as is alleged, stand the raw, 
biting, searching blasts of the north-east — such blasts 
as are never felt in the mild, moist south-west, in 
spring, early summer, and early fall. The old-fashioned 
"byres" were, however, more airy and draughty than 
close and confined. But it is a fact, pretty well known, 
that the late Mr. McCombie, and all of his time, did not 
prefer to house their finely bred cattle in " close " byres 
or stables. Mr. McCombie, indeed, was the champion 
of exposed open courts for stock all winter. In season 
and out of season he advocated these open sheds against 
the modern idea of covered courts. Any one visiting 
Tillyfour in winter, in the height of a storm, could not 
but have been impressed with the unconcern of the 
black polled occupants of these celebrated folds, busy 
over their frosty, snowy turnips, in long rows, close 
packed, the storm having free vent over them. The 
turnips taken internally, in such state as they often of 
necessity had to be in the winter time in the north- 
east, must have had an even worse effect than exposure 
externally to the wintry blasts. These sheds had no 
doors, but were open all in front, and were not on the 
sunny side, but away from and cut off from the sun. 
In Cattle and Cattle Breeders, Mr. McCombie mentions 
that he always preferred cattle from the open straw- 
yards, as they, when turned out to grass, at once " took 
a start," and never lost it. 

So it is a total mistake, whatever " modern improve- 
ment " in construction is suggesting in Scotland to-day, 
to suppose that the breed was thus tenderly coddled 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 33 

and handled with care during winter. The object of 
the great breeders tended all the other way ; and they 
always protested against anything else in the treatment 
of their breeding stock. 

Notwithstanding this early hardening treatment of 
the breed, this natural severity did not tend to 
"coarsen" the hide or hair; it made the latter only 
more protective. The superior quality of the breed 
prevented any coarseness. Depend on it, increased 
coarseness of hide and hair, resulting from equable 
moist climate, as in the south-west, is developed at the 
expense of the beefing qualities — and a breed that is 
only capable of thus producing increased coarse hide 
and hair, under such climatic conditions, should be 
avoided as a squanderer of nature's gifts. 

The winter season in the north-east is not the coldest 
or severest. It is the raiv^ harsh spring, when cattle 
have to go forth and forage. 

The Aberdeen-Angus, of any improved, practicable 
breed, has been from time immemorial reared in an 
atmosphere full of the *' roughing it " object, yet they 
are still superior to it, and unapproached in early 
maturity! 

PRINCIPAL WALLEY AND MR. C. STEPHENSON ON THE 
DISEASE RESISTING CHARACTER OF THE BREED. 

Prof. Walley, P.R.C.V.S., Principal of the Royal 
(Dick's) Veterinary College, Edinburgh, states in his 
work, " The Four Bovine Scourges," that " the Aber^ 
deen-Angus are totally free from tubercular troubles, 
that have caused such wholesale ruin in other cattle " ;. 
and Clement Stephenson, F.R.C.V.S., Chief Veterinary 
Inspector for Northumberland, has recor4e<J. the sarne :. 



34 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

The first season I had pedigree polled cows I was much struck 
with their aptitude to fatten. They were grazing in the same 
fields with other well-bred horned cows (all were suckling calves) 
and, while the blacks were full of flesh and in splendid condi- 
tion, their fellows were so lean that I had to instruct my bailiff 
to give them a liberal supply of cake. 

The more I see of this breed of cattle, the more I am con- 
vinced of their great value ; they are, it is well known, able to 
live and look well on a poorer class of land than many other 
breeds, and yet they repay, in a very marked degree, any atten- 
tion they may receive, either by putting them on good land or 
giving them extra feeding. 

There is another and most valuable advantage these cattle 
possess, namely, their remarkable freedom from tubercular 
disease, a disease that has caused great loss and made sad havoc 
in many a herd, and a disease the importance of which, in a 
medical point of view (viz., its communicability to man), is now 
attracting much attention. Of course, I cannot assert that it 
has never been known or seen in this breed of cattle ; but this I 
can say, that although I have had special opportunities for 
research, and have examined great numbers of cattle, both alive 
and post-mortem^ I have never yet seen a trace of it in this breed. 

In The Live Stock Journat^ — which every stock- 
owner ought to read — for February 12, 1886, is an 
article, ''Muscle: Constitution: Fat," which we con- 
sider of the highest importance, especially in connec- 
tion with the questions agitating the minds of British 
breeders just now. These questions have become 
accentuated in the cry " Are British cattle degene- 
rating?" and have arisen from the particular promi- 
nence given to the dangers of this very dread disease 
— tuberculosis — by Prof. G. T. Brown, in his book 
already noted. We have therefore no hesitation in 
giving the essential portion of the article. It conveys 
a message of pregnant significance, apparently from a 
writer of the highest possible authority : 

* Published by Vinton & Co. (Ld.) : 9 New Bridge St., Ludgate 
Circus, London, E. C 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 35 

To return, what lessons can we learn from these hard times ? 
We, in the first place, must now be taught that the butcher's 
stall is the testing-place of all beef cattle ; and therefore we 
must breed animals that, when killed, will look well on the 
butcher's stall, please the consumer, and in consequence be sold 
readily. Have we Shorthorn men been producing such an 
animal ? I fear not. Style and character and such like non- 
sense have *' done away with us." I can remember while suffer- 
ing from the "fever," agreeing with a Shorthorn judge that a 
Stratton champion at London was all very good " and that sort 
of thing," but wanted sadly the style and character of a true 
Shorthorn. What had we got ourselves to believe ? Simply 
that a rounded level frame, such as Lady Pamela has, full of 
lean flesh or muscle, with light offal on small bones, was not 
what we wanted to breed ! We seemed to believe that the early 
Shorthorn breeders bred animals suitable for our times. Every- 
thing points to the fact that these earlier Shorthorns were " all 
hills and holes," very suitable, no doubt, to cross with the hard- 
fleshed, slow growing cattle of the time, but no use to us now, 
when we have had infusion after infusion of a " tendency to 
fatten blood " into all our common stock for the past fifty or one 
hundred years. 

We have bred from animals with a "tendency to fatten " till 
we have in too many cases lost both flesh and milk. Now, I 
am one of those who believe we can produce Shorthorns that 
can both milk and lay on good flesh and fat with any bree4 
under the snn ; and I also believe these hard times will bring 
Shorthorn men to their senses, to the benefit of the breed. 
What has given the Polled Aberdeen-Angus men such a pull ? 
Simply this — they have a breed of cattle full of lean flesh or 
muscle, an animal that, when killed, pleases the consumer, and 
therefore the butcher. Consider what a record the Aberdeen- 
Angus have made at the past Christmas shows and sales. I do 
not refer to the wonderful heifer bred and shown by Mr. 
Stephenson, so much,fwhen I speak of the record the Aberdeen- 
Angus cattle made, as to the fact that Aberdeen-Angus and 
crosses from them had it almost " all their own way " at all the 
principal shows, as pointed out in the Field a few weeks ago. 
Take the cross-bred classes in London, for instance — classes 
judged by the three Shorthorn judges— and then we find blacks 
and blue-greys heading each class, and in more than one case 
taking all the prizes in those classes. 

There must be some reason for this ; in my opinion it is not 



36 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

far to seek. It is, no doubt, because the Aberdeen-Angus and 
their crosses have more flesh or muscle than our Shorthorns. 
We have bred too many of our Shorthorns to death — we have 
lost that amount of muscle which, in my opinion, is proof 
against that fearful disease Professor Brown speaks of. I quote 
his own words : "Tuberculosis, which is a similar disease to 
consumption in man, extends its area every year among our 
best cattle, to the risk of the extinction of the variety, and the 
great damage to public health." And again he says : *' Tuber- 
culosis, a disease which is extending year by year in some of 
the cultivated breeds of cattle, threatens serious results unless 
the greatest care be taken to avoid using infected animals for 
stock purposes." T should much like to put this question to 
Professor Brown : Did you ever find an animal — and by this I 
mean an animal of the bovine kind— /w?Z of flesh or muscle suffenng 
from this disease ? 

From one extreme I may be running to another, but 1 now 
firmly believe that every one of those animals that have that 
peculiar soft handle I was taught by my brethren in the Short- 
horn world so much to admire, has tuberculosis in one or other 
of its stages.* Up to the time that an animal is in the last 
stages of this fell disease, I believe its handling would delight 
many of our Shorthorn judges. I have seen such awards made, 
and heard such nonsense spoken by acknowledged judges even 
at our national shows, as has led me to question if they really 
knew the difference between flesh and fat. In many cases I feel 
convinced they did not. People rave over the so-called beauti- 
ful handling of prize Shorthorns, when milk-feeding, fat, and 
tuberculosis have all to do with what they so much admire. 

Much nonsense has been said and written about over-feeding 
at breeding shows, and one animal in particular figured often 
in The Live Stock Journal, last season. Lady Pamela, full of 
flesh or muscle, was put aside as being over-fed, and her thin- 
ner-fleshed, but quite as fat, and certaiely harder-fed companion 
from Catterick, awarded the prize. A level, full-fleshed animal 
is spoken of as over-fed, when a thinner-fleshed one, perhaps 
much fatter, is spoken of as being in " nice breeding condition." 
I would say, leave the rules of the shows and conditions of 
entering for competition as they are, but choose judges who 
know the ditterence between flesh and fat. With men who 
know their business, Collings' White Heifer, as we see her in 

*The author has also similarly expressed himself. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 3/ 

our plates or pictures, would at once be sent to her stall. We 
do not want them in these days "all hills and holes," but the 
animals now needed must be smooth made, full of flesh, with 
heavy rounds and muscular roasting joints. In the show-yards 
at present, however, we must, forsooth, submit to having our 
animals passed by "famous Shorthorn breeders," strong family 
and breed partizans, who breed by paper pedigree, and, perhaps, 
never produce an animal with sufficient flesh to make it a good 
one. One feels queer, to say the least of it, to see them touch 
the animals over — apparently gloating over milk-fat, blubber, 
hair, and tuberculosis, and award the prizes to fleshless, useless 
animals. Do the breeders who understand their business, the 
veterinary faculty, the butchers, or the consumers of beef see 
the force of their decisions ? I venture to say they don't. 



38 



CHAPTER V. 
Rangers. 

THEY ARE '' THE CAN'T-HOOK BREED." 

Their utility is great in the want of the horns. The 
horn is an entirely useless appendage to bovines in 
domestication. It was an acquired weapon, without 
doubt. The first bovines had none, assuredly, as they 
did not require any. The Aberdeens being the prime 
butchers' beasts, this combination will make them 
receive wider attention. For droving in close herds, 
for shipping by rail or over sea, the want of the 
horn is greatly appreciated by experienced handlers. 
They can be packed much closer ; men can move 
about them so easily, and they do not tear the hide or 
do, maybe, worse things to their companions. Along 
the close, tied up lines of cattle, at London markets, 
none are so comfortable as the close rows of nobby, 
Polled Aberdeens. Their heads have freedom, while 
the long horns of the Hereford, Sussex, or Devon, are 
frightfully in the way. 

It is n«t alone among their own kind that this feature 
is valuable. The London Worlds e. g., treating of the 
celebrated '' Jim Lowther at Home," supplies us with an 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 39 

interesting itena (October 26, 1882): "At the Honae 
Farm (Walton Castle) are some prime black polled Scots, 
a class of animals far more manageable than either long 
or short horns. Not only are they easier to pack, but 
there is no danger of their hurting a promising yearling 
when they are crowding together." Mr. Geo. Hendrie, 
President of the Detroit Street Car Company, was led 
to prefer the Aberdeens for a similar reason — " they 
can't hook the colts." 

Mr. L. A. Hine, of Erie county, Ohio, writes in the 
Western Rural : " During the three years that we have 
handled these cattle not an animal nor a person has 
been injured. The cows and heifers are never tied 
when stabled, and in the pasture and yards they huddle 
together like so many sheep. They are extremely 
docile when properly treated." 

E. G. Underhill, a young breeder who has started a 
nice little herd at Norwalk, Ohio, writes : " The reason 
I came to prefer the Aberdeen- Angus to the other 
rival breeds, after posting myself on them all, is shortly 
told — I liked them because they were humly,* fattened 
easily and early, and were as docile as lambs. I would 
not part with my pollies." 



FEEDING AND GRAZING QUALITIES. 

All these points go to make up an easy tempered 
animal, specially fit for stall feeding. They are grand 
grazers. It is generally admitted that three Aber- 
deens can be kept for two Shorthorns. 

After trying many breeds as grazers, Mr. McCombie 



^Humly^ the Buchan dialect word for polled; meaning the 
Sfeti&e as doddie. 



40 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

tound the Aberdeen surpassed all. They were the 
** rent-payers." They were the only ones that with- 
stood *'the cold calendars of May." They are excel- 
lent foragers, and they are giving great satisfaction on 
the plains. 

They graze now all over Scotland and its isles, Eng- 
land and Ireland, in fact, everywhere, where improved 
cattle are wanted. 



IN AUSTRALIA. 

A correspondent lately sent a description of one of 
the polled herds, in New Zealand, to the Banffshire 
Journal^ January 5, 1886: " I believe that the breed 
is eminently suited to the soil and pasturage of New 
Zealand ; in fact, while traveling through the country, 
I have noticed, once or twice, a polled beast amongst, a 
mixed lot, and he has almost always been the best." 
In Victoria and Queensland, also, there are some fine 
herds. Mr. J. L. Thompson, well known in the former, 
and Mr. Gordon, Inspector of Live Stock, in the latter, 
have described them as having taken successfully to 
those arid countries, and stamping their characters 
through a long line of descendants wherever they go. 

ON THE AMERICAN PRAIRIES, ETC. 

Mr. James Macdonald, whose name is so well known 
in live stock circles, by his book " Food from the Far 
West " — which is an excellent guide to the American 
live stock industry — in 1877 inspected the Victoria 
Ranch, Kansas, where some Polled Aberdeen bulls had 
been imported from Scotland : '' The polled bulls were 
full of flesh, and seemed quite at home on the prairies. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 4I 

^ * ^ The young stock, of course, are not perfect, 
but the improvement, especially in quality, is very 
marked. ^ ^ ^ Considering that, even in the 
fiercest day in winter, they had no shelter and no feed 
but what they could find on the open prairies, they 
were really in splendid condition. All were lively and 
healthy, and the loss by death last winter, severe as it 
was, was less than five per cent. This season's calves 
are nearly all dropped, and it is expected that for every 
one hundred cows ninety-five calves will be raised. 
The descendants of the polled bulls are easily recog- 
nized ; they are nearly all black ; few have * scurs ' or 
horns and in general style and quality they are unmis- 
takable polls. They do not stand so high as the short- 
horns' crosses, but are thicker, and, as a rule, more 
fleshy. The prairies of the West seem admirably 
adapted for the ' glossy blacks.' ^ ^ ^ Tast winter 
Mr. Grant fed an equal number of shorthorn and polled 
crosses of his own rearing on Indian corn, millet and 
hay ; and on their being slaughtered, at Kansas City, 
the blacks were found to weigh, on an average, 100 lbs. 
per head more than the roans." 

In 1870 Mr. McGibbon, chamberlain to the Duke of 
Argyll, purchased for the West Indian Company of that 
pestilential island, Demerara, sixbulls of different breeds. 
What was their fate? All died but the Angus bull, 
and when Mr. McGibbon left the island, two years ago, 
he was vigorous, multiplying and replenishing the earth. 

The same may be said of the bulls sent to Jamaica, 
Buenos Ayres, etc., by the Hon. Charles Carnegie, from 
the Southesk herd 

In the New Mexico Stock Grozver, of February, 1885, 
we read what Gov. O. A. Hoadley says of the Aber- 
d-een-Angus : 



42 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

They face the storm and graze unconcernedl}^, while other 
range stock are humped np and cold. They seem to enjoy the 
snow and root it like hogs. I have fed none of my polled stock 
this winter. 

W- T. Holt, of Denver, Colorado, observes of them, 
comparing them on the range with his many thousands 
of different breeds : 

The Aberdeen-Angus will outfeed all other breeds. 

Mr. W. H. Embry writes the Kansas City Live-Stock 
Indicator, as follows : 

As a matter of interest to Western cattlemen, I will give you 
my experience in feeding cattle last winter. I fed nineteen half- 
blood Angus, eight half-blood Herefords, and twenty-five high- 
grade Shorthorn two-year-old bulls at the same troughs. The 
Angus bulls stood the storms better, took on fat faster, and were 
in better condition in the spring, than any of the other breeds. 
I found the absence of horns a great comfort to the animals, as 
well as satisfaction to the feeder, not simply on account of 
taking less room at the feed trough, but because it saves the 
animals much worry and many bruises. While the muleys were 
able and ready to defend themselves when attacked by the 
horned bulls, they were more quietly disposed. I have not been 
prejudiced against nor partial to any breed of cattle, and make 
this statement simply from vnj impartial judgment and exper- 
ience. 

Jndge J. S. Goodwin, of Beloit, Kansas, writes to 
the Breeder s Gazette : 

General Campbell, of Denver, breeder of Herefords and 
Angus, brought in an imported Angus bull off the range, in 
May, while I was there, and told me the Angus came through 
the winter the fattest of all his cattle. Mr. Alstot, of Lawrence, 
Kansas, told me last year he bought 380 head of Angus, Gallo- 
way, Hereford and Shorthorn bulls for one range in New 
Mexico, and that the Angus beat them all, coming out of the 
winter sleek and fat ; the Galloways were second, Herefords 
third, and Shorthorns a poor fourth. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 43 

The Rocky Mountain Husbandman says of the Aber- 
deen-Angus cattle in Montana : 

Until recently but little was known in this country of the 
Polled-Angus breed of cattle, and the feeling tended largely 
toward a preference for the breeding of Shorthorns for the 
improvement of our range herds. But the recent introduction 
and experiments with the Polled Angus bulls develop many 
points of excellence for that breed over any other that has ever 
been tried in our Montana climate. The Montana Cattle Com- 
pany, we believe, was the first to turn pure bred Polled Angus 
bulls upon our range, and we learn that the result has been 
highly satisfactory. The breed seems to be stronger than our 
native cattle. It is noticed that the calves from our native cows, 
bred to Polled Angus bulls, invariably take after the sire in 
color and form, so far as that they have no horns. This is one 
of the most superior points in the Polled Angus. Cattle raisers 
who have devoted much time with our range herds now concede 
this is a great advantage over horned cattle. A considerable 
loss from death, yearly, comes from the freezing of horns among 
our common herds. Frozen horns do not cause instant death, 
but aliect the condition of cattle severely in the spring, prevent- 
ing many from taking on flesh readily, and often causing such 
mental dera,ngement that tame cattle become unmanageable. 
Those who have been engaged upon our ranges for some years, 
and have given close attention to our herds, estimate a yearly* 
loss of one percent, from this cause. Cows heavy with calf are 
more easily affected than other cattle. 

Messrs. Martin & Myers, extensive stockmen of Shields River, 
fully concur with us in the superiority of this hornless breed. 
A year ago they brought out sixteen Polled Angus bulls, thirteen 
cows, and four yearling bulls, which they turned out among 
their cattle. No attention was given them through the winter, 
and from the account we have from the foreman of this herd, 
the cattle did not need any. Of the thirty-three head all came 
through the winter in fine condition except one, which was lost 
by accident. It was noticed that in the severest weather, when 
other cattle were seeking shelter from the cold winds, these 
cattle would go upon the highest and most exposed ridges to 
graze, as perfectly unconcerned as if in a warm climate. One 
young bull, which was very poor when turned out, wandered 
away, and was not seen during the winter, and it was thought 
that he had probably got snow-bound and perished ; but, in 



44 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

April, to the surprise of all, he came down from the hills in first- 
rate condition, showing that the bracing atmosphere of our 
Montana climate had agreed with him, and that his condition 
was really better than when he went away, six months previous. 
The result with the Polled Angus shows a great superiority over 
our common stock cattle, and more especially Shorthorns and 
grades which were brought from the same State last year and 
wintered here, the loss among which was very great. 

The North- Western Live Stock Journal, published at 
Cheyenne, Wyoming, also notes these cattle : 

The Messrs. Myers, who own a large ranch with several 
thousand head of cattle ranging on the Yellowstone river, some 
years ago put into their herd a number of well-bred Polled 
Angus bulls, at the same time placing in the herd a number of 
Polled Angus cows. They have now a very large number of 
black polled calves, and so well pleased are they with the young 
stock that they gave an order for the purchase of the animals 
they have just received from Messrs. Estill & Elliott. Messrs. 
Myers, believing in the superiority of the Polled Angus blood, 
propose to give their entire herd a liberal infusion of the best 
strains, and as rapidly as possible produce a herd of black polls. 
They take this course because, they say, "they believe, first, 
that the Polled Angus is the best beef animal, and second, that 
he is the best rustler." 

The following is from an article in the London Field, 
entitled "Cattle Ranching in the Great Lone Land": 

On the Cochrane ranch, however, they are now using a num- 
ber of thoroughbred bulls — Shorthorns, Herefords and Polled 
Angus — preference being given to the last as the hardiest and 
best suited to the climate. These bulls were brought from the 
Cochrane herd in Lower Canada ; they were convej^ed by rail 
and boat to Fort Benton, on the Missouri, 3,000 miles to the 
ranch, and then driven overland 400 miles. This journey aflbrded 
a complete test of the stamina of the respective breeds. When 
they arrived on the ranch, on Bow river, the Shorthorns were 
barely alive, the Herefords had suffered less, but still were 
greatly reduced. The Polled Angus reached their destination 
in good condition, and during the severe winter of 1882 and 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 45 

1883 again proved the superiority of their constitution, and their 
perfect adaptation to their new home. 

This article is signed by a Mr. J. A. McMullen, 
whose name is unknown in Aberdeen- Angus circles; 
but at all events the accuracy of his statements can 
easily be verified or confuted by readers themselves. 

Mr. Geo. Findlay — of Messrs. Anderson & Findlay, 
Lake Forest, near Chicago, 111., who own, perhaps, the 
oldest herd of Aberdeen-Angus cattle in America — 
writes to us : " I have had many conversations with 
ranchmen, who have tried them in Manitoba, Wyoming? 
Colorado and Texas. From, these, I am convinced 
that they are unequaled for this property. As w^e 
have just gotten through with a spell of very severe 
weather, I am reminded of the claim made for them 
by a Montana ranchman, whe has tried them. It was 
this — that the horn is very sensitive to low tempera- 
tures, ,and very readily freezes, so that, in a horned 
herd, there are very frequently found, next season fol- 
lowing a severe winter, a great many animals with one 
or both horns drooping — the result of being frozen the 
previous winter. These animals are invariably in very 
lean condition, and in a precarious state of health. 
You can take this statement for what it is worth. 
Another Montana ranchman told me that his Aberdeen- 
Angus, of all the other breeds he had, were always the - 
first in the morning to leave the shelter and forage for 
grass, no matter how stormy or cold." 

Mr. J. J. Hill, of St. Paul, who owns large and fine 
herds of Aberdeen- Angus and Shorthorn cattle, writes : 
'' If inquiries for Polls is any indication of their doing 
well in the North-West, they surely are the cattle for 
this country." 

The National Live Stock Journal, May, 1883, says: 



4^ THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

''Of the Black Polled Scotch cattle -=^- * "^ the 
Angus, or Aberdeen, have taken precedence. ^ * -J^- 
The bulls answer admirably for crossing with females 
of other breeds, and especially those of Texas, as their 
calves come of a black color, and grow up hornless, or 
with mere stubs or scurs. Thus far they have proved 
themselves very prepotent." 

The same number contains an item which says : 
'' They endure the sudden changes of weather, and 
especially the severity of cold, and come out in better 
condition than any other imported cattle." 

S. P. Cunningham, in the July number, also refers to 
the necessary use of the Polled Angus on the ranges. 
Again, November, they '' are particularly sought after 
for breeding on the vast plains bordering the Rocky 
Mountains." 

The American Agriculturist produced in its February 
number of this year, two remarkable and finely exe- 
cuted engravings, which the following extract, from 
the article accompanying them, will graphically explain : 
" Our artist, Mr. Forbes, gives a picture (page 51) from 
real life of the introduction of an Angus bull upon the 
plains. The stalwart herders eye him critically from 
under their sombreros, taking in his fine proportions, 
and perhaps seeing in the dim future essential changes 
which he is likely to introduce in their wild modes of 
life. Wild or half-wild cattle, need wild or half-wild 
herdsmen. The polled grades are quite docile, easily 
herded, neither liable to injure themselves, the cow- 
boys, nor the horses ; they grow rapidly, fatten kindly, 
and fairly load themselves with flesh when pushed. 
This Mr. Forbes shows admirably in the group of ripe- 
fat steers in the lower picture, ready for the poll-axe. 
Two have mere apologies for horns, loosely attached ; 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 47 

most of them are polled. They can be shipped from 
Abilene, Kansas, or Denver, if necessary, to New York, 
taken out of the cars, fed, watered, and re-shipped, 
every few hundred miles, and arrive showing very little 
shrinkage, no fever and no wounds ; and besides, they 
can be packed closer than horned beasts, greatly saving 
in freight." 

The American Agriculturist has been consistent in 
its advocacy of Polled Angus cattle for the plains. 



48 



CHAPTER VI. 
Grades. 

CROSSING AND CROSSES. 

The following appeared in the Agricultural Gazette, 
August 8, 1 88 1, on this subject: "A great deal is 
written and spoken about ' Aberdeenshire crosses.' 
Shorthorn men seem to find in this a never failing 
theme to advance the praises of their own favorites. 
So they well may, for in how many reports of English 
Christmas exhibitions do we read ' the Polled Scots 
(Aberdeens) and Aberdeenshire crosses continue to be 
the backbone of the exhibition.' Certainly, in recent 
years, these cattle have asserted their position most 
unscrupulously, and to the Shorthorn do Shorthorn 
men claim all the merit. This must be objected to. 
Taking the Aberdeen, the Devon, and the Hereford — 
we put to a female each, of these, the Shorthorn male. 
Now, if it was to the superiority of the Shorthorn 
entirely that any good result was owing, would not the 
three crosses have been equally as good ? But the 
result is that the Aberdeen cross is by far and away 
the best. This test proves that it is not to the Short- 
horn that the Aberdeen cross owes its excellence, but 




"V 



Ifpi' 

1' 




THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 49 

to its own Aberdeenshire dam ; and also proves the 
Aberdeen superior to the Devon and Hereford pure. 
Besides, if we go far enough back in the history of the 
majority of the Shorthorn sires used for crossing in the 
north, even they are founded on a cross with the native." 
So that some of the fame of the Aberdeenshire Short- 
horns belongs also to the Aberdeen. For years there 
have been classes for " crosses " at all the fat stock 
shows of England — for years the Shorthorn has been 
bred in every district in Britain, where there have been 
native breeds, and these '* cross " classes have been 
open to breeders of Shorthorn crosses, from Hereford, 
Devon, and other breed districts, as well as the Aber- 
deen district. What is the result? — the Aberdeen- 
shire crosses fill the classes. Mr. G. T. Turner, stock 
editor of the Mark Lane Express, writing as correspon- 
dent to \X\^ National Live Stock Journal, Chicago, says : 

For evenness, thickness, and quality of flesh, together with 
size, I do not think anything which comes into the London 
market can excel a first cross between the Shorthorn and Polled 
Scot ; and these, together with similarly bred cattle from Scotch 
dams which have one or two crosses in their blood, are the best 
" crosses " which are exhibited at Islington and Birmingham fat 
stock shows. For example, the awards at Islington, December, 
1877, for " cross or mixed bred cattle," were as below : 

steers not exceeding 3 years old. 

^^i?f^fvw^r^^ \ Shorthorn and a Polled Scotch,* second cross. 

2nd " .. Shorthorn and Galloway, first cross. 

3rd " .. Shorthorn and Polled Scotch, second cross. 

Oxen above 3 years old. 

1st prize. . Shorthorn and Aberdeen, first cross. 

2nd " .. Shorthorn and Scotch Polled, remote cross. 

3rd " . . Shorthorn and Aberdeen, second cross. 

With a very few exceptions, the entries of cross-bred cattle, 
*" Polled Scotch" means "Aberdeen Polled." 



so THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

both at Islington and Birmingham, were from Shorthorn sires 
and polled Scotch dams. I give this detail because it is impor- 
tant that it should be clearly shown and understood that partiy- 
bred, mongrel-bred, or — if I may be allowed to use the American 
term — "grade" Shorthorns do not top the English market. 
Again : the Shorthorns are never, that I am aware of, quoted at 
equal rates to the Scots, H(irefords, and Devons, in the London 
market returns ; rtnd the difference in tlie value per pound is 
greater than many suppose. 

Where were the Devon and Hereford crosses? 



THE ABERDEEN DAM IS MORE PREPOTENT THAN THE 
SHORTHORN SIRE. 

The Banffshire (Scotland) Journal, commenting upon 
the appearance of three white Shorthorn bulls in one 
ring at a late Morayshire show, at Elgin, states that 
'' A fancy is growing in Morayshire for white Short- 
horn bulls, to mate with black polled cows. They 
have been crossed in some herds with the best effects, 
the produce being beautiful grey or black calves." 
Adamson says : " The greater part of the cross- 
breds exhibited at the fat exhibitions, and the cross- 
bred class is the acknowledged feature of the show, 
is the Aberdeen-Angus cross, and I say, without fear 
of contradiction, that the money prizes are invariably 
awarded to that cross." Mr. J. H. Harris, 1871, gained 
the championship with such an animal — bred by Mr. 
Robert Bruce, then of Struthers — the dam of which 
ox was purchased by Sir George Macpherson Grant, 
with the intention, presumably, of making her the 
initial foundation of a new family. 

In 1880, the champions at Hull, Birmingham, and 
Smithfield — the three principal fat stock shows of that 
year — were animals bred in Aberdeenshire, sired by 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 5 1 

Shorthorn bulls, and out of Polled Aberdeen dams ; 
" a striking tribute to the skill of Aberdeenshire breed- 
ers, to the Aberdeenshire cattle, and to the premier 
cattle producing county of Britain." The Hull cham 
pion was bred and exhibited by that well known feeder 
and breeder, Mr. Jas. Reid, Greystone, Alford ; the 
Birmingham winner was bred by Mr. Wm. Leonard, 
Farmton, Alford ; the Smithfield champion by Mr. 
Durno, Jackston, Fyvie ; and having captured the eye, 
as a youngster, of Mr. William Middleton, then of 
Greystone, Alford, was sold by him to Mr. Garret 
Taylor, Mr. Colman's agent. This ox was as even as a 
die, and got all his good qualities from the Polled. He 
was exhibited by J. J. Colman, M.P., the enterprising 
breeder of Norfolk Polls, and fancier of the Scotch 
(Aberdeen) Polls. Like McCombie's Black Prince, he 
was forwarded to Windsor, ^' by command," for Her 
Majesty's gracious inspection, before being slaughtered. 

A report of the 1880 Smithfield show said : "The 
cross-bred cattle are conspicuous for vigor, size, and 
quality ; and it is clear that much will be made of them 
in the future, now that they have entered the charmed 
circle of Smithfield champions." But this was not the 
first time that they had done so. 

Mr. G. T. Turner, witing of the 1882 Birmingham 
show says ; '' The division of the show which I 
thought by far the best was that of the cross-bred 
cattle" (January, 1883, number National Live Stock 
Journal}^ 

Again of the Birmingham show, 1883 (same to the 
same) : *' Cross-bred cattle were the best section of 
the show, to my thinking. -^ * ^ The cows and 
heifers comprised one of the plums of the show which 
got the cross cup. I liked her next to the champion 



52 TI-IE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

Scot," of which animal, exhibited by Mr, C. Stephenson, 
he wrote : "As a champion prizewinner, I have not 
seen one I have thought more deserving". She was a 
fine carcass of beef, with the smallest possible bone 
and least possible inferior meat. I am sorry that this 
heifer will not be able to ' try conclusions ' at Islington, 
next week. She has won champion honors at Norwich, 
Leeds, and Birmingham." The regulations debarred 
Birmingham cattle from going to Islington that year, 
else, as many competent judges have asserted, the 
Smithfield, 1883, Champion might have been of the 
'' black and humly " kind prodnced by Mr. Stephenson. 
Mr. Geo. T. Turner, writing of the crosses at this 
show, said: "The Shorthorn-Aberdeen cross, w^hich 
has hitherto proved to be the best of all crosses in the 
show^-yard, goes to show greater prepotency on the 
part of the Aberdeen Polled cow than on the Shorthorn 
sire, the greater portion of the animals so bred showing 
scarcely any variation from Aberdeen Black Polls." 

Mr. Turner had also written in 1882; "Thus it 
will be seen that, as far as the cross-bred animals, at 
Birmingham, are concerned, the Shorthorn sires have 
not been so prepotent as the Polled Aberdeen dams." 

All the above is surely sufficient to uphold the 
" assertion " first made by the writer in the Agricultural 
Gazette, quoted in the beginning of this chapter, viz., 
that the " Aberdeenshire cross " owns its excellence not 
to the Shorthorn element, but entirely to the Aber- 
deenshire dam. 



SO NOW THE POLLED BULL IS PREFERRED TO THE 
SHORTHORN. 

Again to quote the article in the Agriculttiral 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 53 

Gazette, of August 8, 1881 : ''For some time back, 
however, the use of the Shorthorn sire has given place, 
in the north, to the use of the Polled Aberdeen sire on 
Shorthorn and cross cows. This method is giving the 
greatest satisfaction, and the best crosses we have ever 
seen have been so manufactured. The result of this 
is that such cross is at least three-fourths Aberdeen. 
These facts are highly important to owners of other 
breeds, who are turning their thoughts to the ' all 
round' Aberdeen." The above remarks have borne 
fruit, and have materialized in the outcome of some of 
the most remarkable classes in show-yard annals, 
among which has recently appeared, among others, 
Mr. Clement Stephenson's Birmingham heifer of 1884 
— with which he gained the Elkington Cup, which has 
to be won two successive, or any three years. This 
heifer was bred as above indicated. She was three- 
fourths if not wholly Aberdeen, and a perfect butcher's 
beast. The influence of the polled sire on the Here- 
ford may be seen in the famous heifer — winner last 
year of the Breeder'^' Gazette Challenge Shield, in 
American fat stock shows — Burleigh's Pride, an Angus- 
Hereford. A most remarkable display of crosses of 
both kinds appeared at the fat stock shows, this year, 
in England- The champion prizes, besides the prizes in 
the cross classes, are almost wholly Aberdeen-Short- 
horn. It is a most remarkable thing that the Aber- 
deen-Polled are now almost the only thing that 
the many best feeders in England will touch, in the 
attempt to wrest the champion honors at the fat 
stock shows. A show at Smithfield, Birmingham, etc., 
is becoming m.ore like an Aberdeen Fair than any- 
thing else. Full particulars of the 1885 crosses will be 
given in the last chapter. 



S4 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

THE POLLED SIRE IS USED EVERYWHERE. 

In West Galloway, the wpter of the Prize Report, 
in the last volume of the Highland Society's Transac- 
tions, 1885, p. 112, mentions in two places in his essay, 
the use of Polled Angus " bulls " for crossing purposes 
— proving that, in that region, the old reminiscence of 
the breed is still strong. 

All over Scotland, the Western Isles, and the Ork- 
neys have herds been started, or bulls introduced for 
crossing. The same may be said largely of Ireland, 
and in England they are prime favorites for both pur- 
poses, and rapidly increasing. An authoritative cor- 
respondent of the National Live Stock Journal, of 
Chicago, thus writes, February, 1886: 

I am no partisan of any breed of cattle. I have been bitten 
by the pedigree craze, and know a good deal about it. It grows 
on all breeders who study herd-books, and it educates them far 
beyond "nature's laws." Could you believe it ? I have really 
and truly got myself to believe that we ought to breed such 
animals, if possible, as Thomas Bates and Richard Booth 
brought out and exhibited, while round the walls of my little 
smoking-room, where I pored over pedigrees and settled the 
exact nicks in breeding, were pictures of animals belonging to 
those "fathers of Shorthorns" that were anything but the class 
of cattle I wish to breed. 

We must breed for the "block test." All nonsense must be 
laid aside. Those Polled Aberdeen-Angus men, without doubt, 
have the animal at present, and they will reap the harvest. 1 
know of one farmer in Yorkshire, the home of the Shorthorns, 
who, for the last three years, has put an Aberdeen-Angus bull 
to really good Shorthorn heifers, and five of his first j'ear's crop 
sold, at ages from twelve to twenty-three mouths old (two of 
them to a professional fat-stock show exhibitor), to average him 
£40 (1200) each, while he refused £30 (|150) each for the balance 
he has on hand, four animals, from a local butcher. This beats 
all his neighbeurs' pure breeding, and for why ? Because he is 
producing a beef animal. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 55 

" Hermit," the English correspondent of the Kansas 
City Live Stock Record, writes : " Polled Aberdeens 
are great favorites in England, and recent sales would 
show that there is an increasing demand for them in 
the midlands and in the fen country. The ' black 
diamonds' will thrive in any country, and it is amazing 
that English graziers did not take to them long ago. 
The victories of Mr. Clement Stephenson, at Bir- 
mingham and London fat stock shows, has positively 
directed the attention of feeders to the breed, and they 
are now disposed to ally themselves with it. Mr. 
Greenfield, of Dunstable, has sold a bull for service in 
Cornwall, where it will be used for crossing purposes. 
The foundation of a herd has been laid by Mr. G. 
Simpson, of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, and Mr. 
G. Townsend, of Fordham, in Cambridgeshire, has also 
bought a bull for crossing." 

Again : '' The ' black-skins ' are also becoming great 
favorites in England, and I see another breeder in 
Warwickshire has purchased a pure-bred Polled Angus 
bull for service in his herd for crossing purposes." 

Almost every paper we get records similar items. 

Well might the late H. D. Adamson exclaim : " The 
polled sire, on Shorthorn and cross cows, has been 
resorted to with equally good results." He perhaps 
had in his mind Mr. Stephenson's famous heifer, and 
what she was capable of doing. These claims have 
also been fully borne out on American soil. 

Mr. Hine writes : " We have crossed them with the 
Shorthorns with great success, and of about eighty 
half-bloods that have come under our supervision but 
two of them failed to inherit the color, while all are 
hornless." 

Mr. T. W. Harvey says: "Writing to a friend of 



56 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

mine, in Chicago, lately, in answer to a letter asking 
him for statistics regarding these Scotch cross-bred 
animals, Mr. Cruikshank says : ' I have no statistics at 
hand, but we all know that when we want the very 
best beef to be obtained, we cross the Shorthorn and 
the Polled Aberdeen-Angus.' In this country, the 
crossing of Aberdeen-Angus bulls with our native 
cows has proved remarkably successful. The first 
Aberdeen-Angus bulls I ever saw in America, were 
taken to western Kansas and bred to Texas cows. 
About three years after, I saw a report, in a Kan- 
sas City paper, of a shipment, to New York, c)f several 
car loads of two-year-old polled steers from these 
Texas cows, and the average Vv^eight, in New York, 
was given as 1,368 pounds. The evidence of all 
who have used the Aberdeen-Angus bulls on Shorthorn 
grade or native cows, is that the produce are nearly all 
black, and without horns, good feeders, and mature 
early." 

Again, here are two items from the Canadicui Live 
Stock Journal, published at Hamilton, Ont. : 

Mr. Coates, of Eaton, P. Q., had on exhibition at Sherbrooke 
two specimens of the first cross of an Aberdeen-Angus bull on 
ordinary grade cows. Though but a little more than one year 
old, they weighed between 1,000 and 1,100 lbs., and are fine 
specimens. Though the dams were roan, they are jet black, 
without one single white hair, and are fine thrifty beefers. They 
were sired by Mr. Pope's bull Proud Viscount. Mr. Pope has 
also many excellent specimens of the Aberdeen Poll grades. 

The Geary Bros. Importing Co., Bothwell, had twelve pure- 
bred Aberdeen-Angus calves (December 17th), and expect the 
number to reach sixty head there and at Bli Bro by 1st June 
next, and of Aberdeen-Angus grade calves about ninety' by same 
date. Of these quite a number will be three-quarter grades. 
This is a very practical way of demonstrating the merits of this 
splendid brec<J . 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 57 

We are favored with the following from Geary Bros, v 
'*We bought, in 1883, a number of common Canadian 
cows, which we bred to pure bred Angus bulls, the 
result being a very large percentage of calves. The 
bulls were all sold, but the heifers, which still remain 
on the place, and are somewhat less than nineteen 
months old, on the average will weigh nearly 1,000 lbs. 
each, -and that on ordinary keep. One of the above 
lot, when a calf, got in calf to a pure bull, and calved 
at twelve and a half months ; a fine heifer calf, and 
now, at the age of nineteen months, she is in calf 
again, and will calve at twenty-three and a half months 
— two calves before she is two years old! " 

The Canadian Live Stock Journal, writing of the 
show at Sherbrooke, Canada, says : 

It was with peculiar satisfaction that we noticed the extensive 
and painstaking efforts that the Hon. M. H.. Cochrane, of Hill- 
hurst, was making in this direction, as witnessed by the many 
specimens of the cross-breds that were exhibited by him at 
Sherbrooke, at the Eastern Townships Exhibition held there 
last October. Some of the various crosses only can we refer to. 

Aberdeen-Angus — Shorthorn cross-bred heifer. This specimen, a 
red in color, two years old, was sired by the Aberdeen- Angus 
bull Northesk A (1478), and out of the Shorthorn cow Belinda, 
by Prince Arthur (27506). This heifer had an Angus head, nice 
sloping shoulders, and was pretty in many ways. 

Aberdeen-Angus — Ayrshire cross-bred heifer. Here the Ayrshire 
color was completely lost in the Aberdeen-Angus black. The 
sire, Sidney (2360), and the dam the Ayrshire cow Heather 
Bloom. This one-year was a good beast. The shoulder was 
thickened, and also the quarter. 

G-rade— Aberdeen- Angus steer. This portly fellow, calved April, 
1884, was a chunk of beef of prime quality, sired by an Angus 
bull, and from a small native dam. He was red in color, 
immense on the crops, and good in all his parts, which brought 
him the gold medal for best beef animal at the show, and first 
also as best grade yearling steer. We can speak of this cross 
with unquahfied praise, an opinion borne out by the results of 



$8 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

the Experimental Farm tests, by the experience of Geary Bros, 
in the West, that of Mr. Rufus H. Pope, Cookshire ; Mr. M. C. 
iPearce, Stanstead, and of others. 

Aberdeen-Angus — Shorthorn — West Highland cross-bred steer. His 
color was black, calved December 3rd, 1883. His weight in the 
middle of September, 1885, was 1,225 lbs., though not pushed at 
all. He was just a fine beast, plump and smooth. He was got 
by Northesk (Aberdeen-Angus) (1578), dam Bride, by Duke of 
Oxford 35th (Shorthorn) 2635c, g. d. Sheila (Shorthorn West 
Highland), by Sirius (Shorthorn) 18336, gr. g. d. Cruinach Og 
(West Highland cow) imported from Argyllshire, Scotland. A 
steer calf almost of like breeding was a compact animal, low, 
level, deep, and of fine quality, and took an easy first. While 
this latter cross may be of great service to ranchmen whose 
high latitudes require hardy beasts, the great lesson from all 
this to our countrymen is that for beef -production the Aberdeen- 
Angus upon our native cattle produces a most excellent cross. 

J. J. Rodgers, Abingdon, 111., has been one of the 
first to extensively use Angus bulls on to high bred 
Shorthorns. Estil & Elliot and Leonard Bros., two 
extensive Missouri firms, have also produced some 
excellent stock from native cows. 



THE VERDICT. 

So that we have not '^ far to go " for the verdict as 
to what is the best bull in the world to use for crossing 
or grading on beef cattle : " The nearer the animal is 
to the Aberdeen type," says Mr. Jas. Macdonald, '* the 
better is he preferred by the butcher. If he is not 
pure on both sides, they try to get him sired by an 
Aberdeen bull." 



CROSSES OF THE ABERDEENS ON THE DAIRY BREEDS. 

After thus detailing the results of crossing the 
Angus on to cows of the beef breeds, we present, 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 59 

lastly, a few proofs of their value for crossing on to 
cows of the milk breeds. One case has already been 
noted on the Ayrshire. Mr. Geo. Wilken, Waterside, 
Alford, Scotland, has conducted some experiments on 
the same breed. 

In 1878 he bought three Ayrshire heifers, and served 
them with a polled bull. Next year he had three very 
pretty black polled heifer calves. He retained two of 
these, and had two calves every year from them — in all 
nine calves. All the produce have been black and 
polled, except one, which had a white spot on its side. 
The first cross retained the milking qualities, while 
they were quite superior beef animals. The second 
cross of the polled bull seemed to stamp his breed's 
characteristics so thoroughly that polled breeders, who 
were shown one of the produce among the herd, failed 
to point it out, though an expert cow dealer did. The 
writer was one of the number, and he can assert that 
there was no apparent mark to distinguish it from the 
others.* 

In harvest time there was purchased, to give '* hairst 
milk," at Bridgend, Alford, a Dutch-Holstein cow. She 
had been served by a polled bull, and shortly after 
arrival dropped a fine polled calf, with some white 
spots. Subsequent produce of this cow and calf were 
thoroughly black, and polled. The females proved 
excellent milkers, and of first-rate symmetry — a huge 
improvement on the original dam. There was a curious 
thing in connection with this cow. In the field, though 
horned, she was effectually kept out of the community 
of the other dairy cows ; she dared not approach them. 
If she did, it was only to be chased away. It was a 



See also " Polled Cattle," by Macdonald & Sinclair, p. 



6o THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

clear case, in this, of " the homyl beiring the wyte." 
The produce were greatly appreciated. The first calf 
out of the original cow was sold at the Bridgend dis- 
plenish for a high figure. This cross cannot be too 
highly recommended. 

Mr. Isaac B. Lutz, v/riting to the Farmer s Review^ 
says the " Angus makes a good cross on the Jerseys, 
for farm purposes, as they will give from four to five 
gallons of milk per day. If properly fed for milk, the 
quality will nearly average with the average Jersey. 
The calves of the Angus and Jersey can be fattened at 
any age to sell, ready for butcher stuff." Such is the 
result of- a past ten years experience. 



6i 



CHAPTER VII. 
Early Maturity, 

SIZE. 

The opinions of the following authorities, acquainted 
with many different breeds, have been noted : 

Jas. Bruce, of Ruthwell, Annan, Dumfrieshire, Scot- 
land (live stock agent, frequently a judge, and author 
of " Scotch Live Stock "), says : " They grow to large 
size." 

T. W. Harvey, Chicago, Secretary of the American 
Shorthorn Herd Brook Society, says : " They rank 
with the largest." 

Hon. L. F. Allen, late editor of ** American Short- 
horn Herd-Book," author of various works, says : 
" They are equal to the largest." 

Jas. Macdonald, editor of The Live Stock Journal^ 
joint author of " History of Hereford Cattle," etc., 
says : " They are not inferior to the best Shorthorns 
or Herefords." 

H. D. Adamson, winner of the Elkington Champion 
Plate, in 1879, ^^ Birmingham, with a Shorthorn heifer, 
says : " Their color and compact contour deceives one 
very much — put the tape around them and they will 



62 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

astound you. Put them on the scales and you will 
be 200 pounds wrong on 1,000 pounds." 

Robt. Bruce, Great Smeaton, Northallerton, Eng- 
land, well known on this side as one of the best judges 
in Britain, says : '' It is their fine bone and no waste 
that at first sight might give an onlooker a wrong 
impression. I have never seen larger or better cattle 
in the show-ring than I have from this breed." 

The following extract from The North British Agri- 
culturist, says : *' Bulls or oxen fattened for exhibition, 
scale as much as 2,700 lbs. ; and we have seen females 
of the breed exceed 2,000 lbs. ; a good average live 
weight for cows of the breed, as they go to the butcher, 
is from 1,200 to 1,400 lbs. 

OFFALS. 

In 1829, Mr. Hugh Watson's (Keillor), famous Smith- 
field medal heifer, had phenomenally fine bone — the 
bone of her foreleg was " no thicker than that of a deer." 
The tests prove that their offals are lighter than any 
other breed. That is best proved by the fact that they 
dress the highest per cent, of any. Black Prince, 
Geary's famous steer, I am told, by Mr. Geary himself, 
really dressed 71.50 per cent. ; and the of^cial record 
of J. J. Hill's Benholm, 1885, was 71.4 per cent. 

Again, the bone is of the finest, and will compare 
favorably with all other breeds. I may give as an 
instance — a Newcastle butcher bought at the same 
time a Shorthorn and an Aberdeen heifer, and, for 
curiosity, had the hough bone of each neatly taken out 
and weighed. The carcass of the polled heifer weighed 
784 lbs., that of the Shorthorn 448 lbs., yet the bone 
of the latter weighed 6l lbs., while that of the polled 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 63 



heifer was only 5! lbs. Another instance — Mr. Bruce, 
the well known cattle salesman, of Newcastle, writes on 
the 9th of September, 1884 : " Last year I sold a Sun- 
derland butcher a black Polled-Aberdeen fat heifer, 
some two years seven months old, and the same day he 
bought a Shorthorn bullock, about the same age, 
weighing twenty-eight pounds more. The bone of the 
foreleg of the bullock weighed exactly double that of 
the heifer. The breed is a favorite equally with the 
consumer and butcher. With the former for its juicy 
flavor and quality of fat, and with the latter for the 
high percentage of dressed meat to live weight — 6"] to 
70 per cent. — the flesh being so well intermixed with 
fat gives a mottled appearance like marble ; there is no 
waste from patchiness or blubber, the fat is well dis- 
tributed, and the internal fat is of the finest quality." 

The writer of a very important article in the Scots- 
man, in the fall of 1873, among other features, stated 
that " the offal of the Angus is remarkably light, 
lighter than any other Scotch breed, and eclipses the 
Shorthorn in evenness and plumpness of flesh. They do 
not consume so much food ; and are much hardier 
and finer in the bone than the Herefords." 



DRESS OVER SEVENTY-TWO PER CENT. AT POISSY- 

1857. 

The following is quoted from Le Fermier, a French 
agricultural journal : 

"At the Concours de Poissy, of 1857, much notice 
was taken of three Aberdeen oxen, aged from four to 
four-and-a-half years, having an average weight of 
IjOSB kilos. ..Bandement, who followed them to tli^ 



64 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

butcher's, relates that they gave an average of 742 
kilos, of meat, which would be 68 per cent., and 105 
kilos, of tallow, which would be 9.6 per cent. But this 
average hides individual differences which it is inter- 
esting to recall. The oldest of the three gave a pro- 
digious yield in net weight, surpassing 72 per cent. 
This was the highest of all ascertained yields at the 
Concours. This shows to what great weight the finest 
of this breed may attain, and what is their power of 
assimilation. I should add that at our last show of fat 
cattle at the Palais de ITndustrie, the highest yield of 
prime animals did not exceed 68 and 5-6th of beef." 



EARLY MATURITY. 

* Henry Evershed, who is one of the best known 
writers in England, in an article on Sussex cattle, in 
the Agricultural Gazette, and who has published a work 
on Early Maturity, bears an independent testimony to 
the Aberdeens " as peculiarly noted for their early 
maturing properties." He was referring to the preco- 
cious maturity of the champion Paris group. It was 
not till 1 88 1, however, that Shorthorn men, who had 
been in the habit of claiming this as their special 
excellence, laid down the gauntlet to all breeds. At 
the Smithfield Show, of 1881, rules were instituted 
that were meant, by the test of early maturity, to give 
a blow to what were dubbed *' the slow maturing 
breeds.^' What was the result? That year the cham- 
pion heifer and ox, and, consequently, championship of 
the entire show, were two Polled Aberdeens, less than 
two years and eight months old. These were exhibited 
by one man, and performed an unprecedented feat, and 
one that it will almost be impossible to rival again. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 6$ 

They were the youngest champions ever seen at Smith- 
field. That fact should never be forgotten. 

At the Smithfleld Show, in 1879, the highest increase 
in weight per day, from birth, was shown by a two 
year and nine months old steer of the Polled Aberdeen 
or Angus breed. At Smithfleld, in 1880, the average 
daily increase in weight of six Polled Aberdeen or 
Angus steers, under three years old, was 1.78 lbs., and 
that of the corresponding class of Shorthorn steers 
1.79 lbs. 

The following are the flgures, from the Mark Lane 
Express, for Smithfleld Show, 1880, in 

Class 26.— Scotch Polled Steers, not exceeding three years old. 

No. 

158. Sir W. C. G. Gumming, Aberdeen, 

160. Sir W. C. G. Gumming, Aberdeen, 

163. R. G. Auld, Aberdeen 

163. Robert Jardine, M.P., Galloway . 

164. Robert Jardine, M.P., Galloway . 

165. J. J. Golman, M.P., Aberdeen . . . 

On comparing these figures with the corresponding 
class of Shorthorns, we find only one, in that class of 
twelve entries, reaches 1.93. 

The Agricultural Gazette, in commenting on the 
class alluding to the Galloways, said : '' And two, well^ 
they are not fat at allT If it was not beef that gave 
this growth, it must have been the waste or bone or 
" timber " — as in the ox instanced above by Mr. Robt. 
Bruce, under the head of '' offals." 

In 1881 — year of the Altyre victories — the animal 
making the highest average daily gain, of the cattle 
exhibited at the IsHngton Fat Stock Show, was the 
Scotch polled steer bred and exhibited by Mr. John 
Seaman Postle, of Smallburgh, Norwich. This animal 



1066 


1893 


1.77 


1023 


1811 


1.77 


970 


1876 


1.93 


954 


1596 


1.78 


961 


1534 


1.60 


1076 


2072 


1,93 



t^ 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 



showed a record of 1,802 lbs. at 617 days, and an average 
daily gain of 2.91 lbs. He thus added his mite — not an 
unimportant one — to the heavy score made by the 
Scotch cattle at Islington. 

The following table gives the weights of cattle of 
the breeds exhibited at the fat show in the Agricultural 
Hall, Islington, London, in 188 1. It shows the num- 
ber of animals in each class, their average age, their 
average gross weight, and their average daily gain in 
pounds: 

STEERS NOT EXCEEDING TWO YEARS OLD. 



Breeds. 


No. of 

Animals 

in 

Class. 


Average 

Age 

in 

Days. 


Average 
Gross 

Weight 
in lbs. 


Average 

Daily 

Gain in 

lbs. 


Crosses 


4 

12 

6 

6 

12 


643 

581 
639 
764 
662 


1458 
1245 
1339 
1394 
1135 


2.26 


Hereford 


2.14 


Shorthorn 


2.09 


Sussex 


2.06 


Devon 


1.71 







STEERS NOT EXCEEDING THREE YEARS OLD. 



Shorthorn 

Crosses 

Scotch Polled 

Hereford 

Sussex 

Norfolk and Suffolk Polled. 
Devons 



4 


983 


1975 


12 


907 


1830 


8 


945 


1874 


10 


975 


1734 


7 


1022 


1756 


2 


1058 


1583 


10 


1004 


1465 



2.01 
2.01 
1.99 
1.79 
1.71 
1.59 
1.45 



STEERS NOT EXCEEDING FOUR YEARS OLD. 



Crosses 

Scotch Polled 

Hereford 

Shorthorn 

Sussex 

Norfolk and Suff"olk Polled. 

Devon 

Highland 



4 


1358 


2374 


2 


1287 


2106 


9 


1245 


2002 


9 


1413 


2226 


5 


1310 


2005 


3 


1267 


1733 


7 


1294 


1602 


4 


1700 


1853 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 
HEIFERS NOT EXCEEDING FOUR YEARS OLD. 



Crosses 

(Shorthorn 

Scotch Polled 

Sussex 

Hereford 

Devon 

Highland 



67 



8 


1007 


1629 


16 


1196 


1796 


2 


1197 


1783 


5 


1174 


1721 


5 


1115 


1575 


4 


1181 


1299 


3 


1371 


1481 



1.61 
1.50 
1.49 
1.46 
1.41 
1.10 
1.08 



Referring to this memorable show, The Fields Lon- 
don, December, 1881, said: ''It was clear that early 
maturity and quality of meat weighed largely with the 
judges in the awarding of the Champion Cup and other 
special prizes at London. Sir Wm. Gordon Cumming's 
champion heifer left nothing to be desired either in the 
quality of her meat, the fineness of her bone, or the 
symmetry of her form, and she also weighed well, 
showing a daily gain in weight, from her birth, of 
1.85 lbs. * ^ ^ There was a good muster of Scotch 
breeds, more especially ot that valuable and fast rising 
breed known as Polled Aberdeen-Angus. In average 
merit the last breed was excelled by none, and, as is 
well known to our readers, carried off the lion's share 
of the special honors." 

This show proved the most successful for many years, 
having been visited by 124,683 persons. The remark- 
able success of the Aberdeen or Angus Polled cattle 
was the subject of comment by the press of the three 
kingdoms. Scotch cattle were never so successful 
before at Smithfield, the remarkable feature being the 
early maturity of the two animals belonging to Sir 
Wm. Gordon Gumming. The champion heifer, for her 
age of 2 years 8 months, showed a weight of 1 5 cwts. 
3 qrs. 24 lbs. The best heifer of the Hereford breed 
was four months older, but i cwt. 2 qrs. 8 lbs. hghter ; 



68 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

and the best Devon heifer, also four months older, but 

3 cwts. less weight. The best Shorthorn heifer was 

4 years lo months 7 days old, and weighed 19 cwts. 
2 qrs. 7 lbs., showing scarcely 4 cwts. for two years and 
two months extra growth. The polled ox of Sir Wm. 
Gordon Gumming, which took the prize as the best ox 
of any breed, had also greatly the advantage in weight 
for his age. He was 2 years 8 months and 6 days old> 
and turned on the scales 17 cwts. i qr. 21 lbs. The 
Hereford ox of Mr. Lloyd stood next in favor with the 
judges, but he was three months older and i cwt. i qr. 
lighter. The best Devon ox was four months older 
than the polled and 2^ cwts. lighter. The best Short- 
horn ox, Mr. R. Wortley's (bred at Craigwillie), was 
two months older than the Polled, but one half hun- 
dredweight lighter. (The English ''cwt." is 112 lbs.) 

The demand for young beef is only of late origin. 
Mr. H. D. Adamson put the matter correctly w];ien he 
said, '' formerly the Scotch grazier thought it necessary 
to send nothing to the London markets under four 
years of age, and the national fat stock shows gave no 
encouragement to early maturity." It was, indeed, 
rather a hobby with breeders of the older school to 
keep their cattle till they were aged ; and, further, it 
was thought and agreed, and maintained and held, that 
beef could not be healthy or wholesome till the ox was 
matured and mellowed by age. That was the secret of 
the matter. Young beef it was thought could not be 
wholesome, could not contain in its tissue the elements 
that made it food for the strong. National markets 
and shows, indeed, encouraged and supported the idea. 
But a new order of things — the necessity for a quicker 
return of capital — led breeders and feeders to discover 
that early maturity did not mean unwholesome or un- 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 69 

ftiellowed beef. The early maturity step was, there- 
fore, taken, and it has come to be the chief test of 
breeds, and the chief point to be encouraged. The 
transition from the four-year-old champion polls of 
1857, 1862, and the three-year-old champions of 1872 
to the c?iampions of 1881, and the present day, is com- 
plete. Under the new test, the Aberdeen-Angus at 
once proved their powers. In 1883 the ten young 
Aberdeen steers averaged 1,804 lbs., the Herefords, 
1,742 lbs. Mr. Stevenson's Aberdeen polled heifer 
which was champion at Birmingham, in 1883, ^t the 
age of two years and eight months, scaled 1,867 lbs., 
whilst the Hereford heifer, which was awarded the cup 
for the best of its breed at the age of three years six 
months, scaled only 1,615 lbs. 

The following figures relate to the (1883) Smithfield 
winners of the " Breed Cups " : 

Age in days. Daily gain in lbs 

The Queen's Shorthorn heifer 987 2.08 

Mr. C. Stephenson's Polled heifer. ... 984 2.01 

Mr. J. S. Hodgson's Sussex steer 1083 1.97 

Mr. I. Myddleton's Hereford steer. . . . 1272 1.67 

Mr. J. Baker's cross-bred ox 1359 1.63 

Major Piatt's Welsh ox 1416 1.63 

Prince of Wales' Devon steer 1397 1.34 

(Norfolk Polls and Welsh compete together.) 

The first on the list was the champion of the show. 
A report said: ''Mr. Stephenson had another heifer, 
which was champion at Birmingham, which could not 
compete at Smithfield. We should have liked to have 
seen her try conclusions here on this occasion." (See 
p. 52.) 

The 1885 Smithfield Show had, for the first time, a 
class of young Polled Aberdeen steers, not exceeding 
two years old. The following are the figures, and com- 



?6 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 



ments from The Field which are valuable for compari- 
son and reference : 

*' It is now demonstrated that the yonng classes are 
those in which meat is put on the most cheaply. The 
vigorous digestive powers of the growing animal extract 
more of value from the food given to it than any older 
beast can be hoped to return, Now, besides the ques- 
tion of the age at which meat is most profitably made, 
comes up a hardly less important question — ' By which 
breed is the early profitable beef most freely laid on ? * 
Here are a few statistics culled from the catalogue of 
the Smithfield exhibition of 1885, which is a kind of 
model in its way. The youngest classes only are taken, 
and those breeds only are dealt with which lend them- 
selves the more readily to early maturity : 



Days. 

7 Devon s at an average of 627— 
5 Herefords " 597 

8 Shorthorns " 668 
8 Sussex " 688 
7 Polled Angus " 604 

11 Cross-breds " 605 



■Gave average weight of 1158 
1368 
1553 
1468 
1408 
1800 



" If these ages and weights be reduced so as to show 
what each animal of each variety had, on an average, 
to show for each day of its life, it will appear that 

L,b3. 

Each Devon for each day had 1 .85 

EachHereford " 2.28 

Each Shorthorn " 2.48 

Each Sussex " 2.14 

Each Polled Angus " 2.49 

Each cross-bred " 2.28 

" These variations are sufficiently surprising, and 
point to truths not always recognized. 

" The largest rate per day is made by the black polled 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. /I 

breed, which actually makes a larger growth per diem 
than docs the same poll when a cross with the quickest 
ripening blood [?] is admittedly present." 

At the Kansas City Fat Stock Show of 1885, there 
were exhibited of Aberdeen-Angus — (i), in the two- 
year-old class, ''Blaine" and ''Logan;" (2), in the 
yearling class, " Sandy ; " (3), in the calf class, " Alex." 

In the early maturity class these came in body bulk 
ahead of all others : 

Two-year-old class.. .Blaine, .weighing 1615 lbs., age 761 days. 
Two-year-old " ..Logan.. " 1520 " " 651 " 
One-year-old " ...Sandy.. " 1455 " "581 " 
Calf " ...Alex.... " 905 " " 293 " 

These tests place the Aberdeens and Shorthorns, 
and their combinations, before all other breeds. This 
is the remarkable result of the world's test. With it 
we are satisfied. 



;2 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Prime Scots. 

AS BEEF PRODUCERS. 

From the earliest time the Aberdeen-Angus cattle 
have been famed for the quality of their beef. In the 
4th century the Buchan cattle supplied beef to the 
Roman legionaries. It was for their qualities in this 
respect that they were for centuries sought out. Dr. 
Skene Keith says, ** that no place in the kingdom could 
boast of better beef than Aberdeen." It is described 
as finely grained and marbled — the fat and lean equally 
distributed, juicy, tender, and as well flavored as the 
Kyloe. These characters have been retained, and 
Aberdeen, to-day, can still boast the finest meat mar- 
ket in Britain. Their fame early reached London. 
Rev. A. Forsyth, LL.D., of Belhelvie, wrote in 1837: 
*' A great many cattle are bred and fed in this parish 
for the London market. They are principally of the 
improved Aberdeenshire breed. Their bones are small, 
they carry a great deal of flesh, are easily fed, and are 
soon fit for the market." Rev. Chas. Gibbon, of Lon- 
may, writing in 1830, says: *' It is well known that 
Buchan has long been celebrated for its cattle. For 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 73 

the last twenty years, preceding 1830, the polled or 
doddied were in great demand, and, indeed, still bring 
high prices in the southern markets and tke top price in 
Loyidon^ In the Chapel of Garioch district, about the 
same time, " during the winter, a great many are fed 
on tur7tips and straw ^ and are either sold to the butcher, 
or sent by sea to London." The oil-cake cross had not 
yet been introduced. This beef character has been 
since annually proved to demonstration, at the London 
market — the best market ,in the world for prime 
butcher's beasts.* And here it is necessary to say 
that Polled Scots, or Prime Scots, mean the Polled 
Aberdeen-Angus. This should be distinctly under- 
stood, once for all. Speaking of the breed, the Far- 
mer s Review, which has the best live stock department 
of any agricultural paper in America, says of the breed : 
" Their beef is noted for its excellence, and is called 
'Prime Scots' in the Smithfield, London, market, 
where it brings two cents more than any other beef." 
This, in fact, is written by the editor, a gentleman 
hailing from the southwest of Scotland. 

Again, the Mark Lane Express, in 1879, says : '' The 
great value of the Polled Scotch breed of cattle, as 
beef producers, is well known all over England, and 
especially in the London markets. At the Paris exhi- 
bition, last year, the gold medal offered for the best beef 
producing breed was awarded to the Polled Scots. [This 
sentence is given to show the identity of the Polled Scots 
with the Aberdeen Polled — which can be so much fur- 



*Itis of great interest to note, in connection with the beef 
trade, that these two great industries, that have reached such 
dimensions in America, viz., the canning and dead meat trade, 
originated first in the city of Aberdeen, which exclusively con- 
ducted both for many years. 



74 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

ther illustrated]. Their beef is of the very best and 
they are exceedingly fine in the bone, and light of offal ; 
standing, in this respect, far above the Shorthorns." 

It is the same journal, the Mark Lane Express, in 
reviewing a work on " Meat Production," by John 
Ewart, in which the Aberdeens are placed second, and 
the Shorthorns and Hereford first, says: " Here again 
the author is in error as to facts; for an Aberdeen 
bullock is thicker than either the Hereford or the Short- 
horn'' 

The Country Gentleman says : '* ' Prime Aberdeen ' 
is a phrase which is in common use in the London beef 
market. Perhaps if you were to ask every butcher in 
London, you would find he never sold anything else." 

Mr. Hine has visited the London market and finds 
the Aberdeens are the Prime Scots : *' The flesh is 
finely marbled, and the best portions of the carcass are 
well developed. The amount of offal is about ten per 
cent, less than in most other beef breeds. The Lon- 
don, England, market recognizes the superiority of the 
Aberdeen-Angus beef in that the ' Scots ' are held for 
the holiday sales, and command two cents per pound 
more than other beef. The patrons of other breeds 
are not unwilling to accord to the Aberdeen-Angus the 
first place, from a beef-producing. standpoint." 

Col. G. W. Henry, of Angus Park, Kansas City, in cor- 
recting the eggregious but perennial error of asserting 
against the absolute knowledge to the contrary, that 
the Galloways contribute to the '' Prime " Scots, says ; 
** I would like to know a little more about the London 
market he (Mr. McCrae) speaks of. I spent a month 
in the London ^markets just four years ago, the state 
of facts he speaks of did not then exist, and possibly 
he is speaking of more recent dates," 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 75 

G. L. Stichter, Kenesaw, Nebraska, noticing the same 
allegation, writes also to the Kansas City Live Stock 
Indicator, March 11, 1886: ''His (Mr. McCrae's) 
assertion that ' in the London market Galloway beef 
sells one penny per pound higher than other cattle * 
must certainly have originated in a dream'' 

The special reports in the London Live Stock Jour- 
nal ; North British Agriculturist, Edinburgh ; Breeder s 
Gazette ; National Live Stock Journal ; Kansas City 
Live Stock Record ; of the London market, for 1885, all 
say that " no Galloways were there " — that it was the 
Polled Aberdeen-Angus that were the " Prime Scots," 
as they always have been. 

In The Live Stock of the Farm, edited by that 
veteran, John Chalmers Morton (Bradbury, Agnew & 
Co., 9 Bouverie Street, London), 1882, says of the 
Aberdeen-Angus, p. 24 : " Pure or crossed with the 
Shorthorn, sent to London, either as live animals or 
dead meat, command the top price of the market." 

The following is from the London Daily Telegraph's 
report of the Christmas market for 1876: "The prin- 
cipal feature of to-day's show was the receipt of Scotch 
cattle. About 2,000 head came to hand. We believe 
we are correct in stating that during the past week 
fully ;^40,ooo worth of stock left Aberdeen, alone, for 
the London market. This breed, undoubtedly, formed 
the piece de resistance. Take away the Scots and the 
principal charm disappears — in fact, they may be con- 
sidered to have chiefly redeemed the market. There 
was also, of course, a good show of cross-bred, with a 
fair sprinkling of Devons and some prime Herefords." 

Mr. H. D. Adamson says: ''Take up an English 
agricultural paper, or even the Times, refer to the Lon- 
don fat cattle markets, and you will at all times find 



'jS THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

the Scots, that is the Aberdeen and Angus, or their 
crosses, commanding the highest figures, on an average 
of two cents per pound more than the Shorthorn, for 
the carcass dressed. Why is this? Because not only 
is the meat better, but the butcher knows he has much 
less waste," 

Mr. J. L. Thompson, manager at Beefacres, South 
Australia, in a paper read before the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society of that colony, alluded to the pre- 
eminence of the Aberdeens : " Where it is intended 
to ship or ' train ' (car) the cattle to a distant market, 
alive, I would recommend the Polled Aberdeen. There 
is no denying the fact that, for beef, the Polled Aber- 
deen commands the highest price in the London mar- 
ket. Take up any English paper, and cast your eyes 
to the meat reports, you will always find * Prime 
Scotch ' quoted, say, at 5s. lod. to 6s. per stone of 8 lbs. ; 
' Hereford,' 5s. 8d. to 5s. lod., etc." 

The following is the usual way the market is reported : 

"Prime Scots 6s. to 6s. 2d. per stone. 

" Shorthorns, Herefords 5s. 8d. to 5s. lOd. " " 

" Inferior Beasts 5s. 6d. " " 

" American, etc 5s. 4d. to 5s. 6d. " " 

''The top quotations mean Scots cattle, and Scots 
only." And now it is a common thing to see in the 
reports of the market special reference to the Polled 
Aberdeens — the Prime Scots : *' Prime Scots made 
6s. 2d., and, in some cases, best Polled Aberdeens, 
6s. 4d." {Live Stock Journal, December, 1880; see 
also 1884). So that each Christmas market is a recur- 
rence of the old demonstration. " The Christmas 
market, like every other one that has gone before, sim- 
ply proves that it is impossible to obtain a better 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 7/ 

feeding, heavier weighing, or a more profitable bullock 
than the Polled Aberdeen." (Special report Daily 
Free Press, Aberdeen, December 13, 1881.) 

"The typical Aberdeen is an animal with a fourth 
less bone and offal than an average Shorthorn, carrying 
lean of a far finer quality. It is such close making up 
that makes it weigh so much in proportion to its size^ 
and in comparison with other breeds." (Same report.) 

Mr. Wm. Anderson, Wellhouse, Alford, an unim- 
peachable witness, says : " In my experience the 
Polled Scot* is the best selling animal in good times, 
and the best selling animal in bad times. As a rule, I 
get £2 ($10) a head, or even more, for polled animals 
than for xrosses of the same weight * ^ ^ the 
butcher can well enough afford that extra sum. I lately 
heard the statement of a leading Aberdeen butcher, 
that he could give 5s. (about $1.25) more per hundred- 
weight (112 lbs.) for a fat polled animal than for a 
cross." 

One would not expect the Quarterly Review to con- 
tain much allusion to beef, bucolics, or butchers. Nor 
does it ; but when it did it would be all the more note- 
worthy. The Quarterly Reviezv,3bovit 1850, published- 
an article by the late Mr. Thomas Gisborne, M.P., of 
Yoxall, Staffordshire, a man of the time and known to 
fame, who contributed many articles on agriculture, 
collected and published about 1857. In that on '' Cat- 
tle and Sheep," he thus places the breeds for beef — 
'* Scots generally, Devons, Herefords, indiscriminate 
crosses and mongrels, down to the improved Short- 
horns. In each case the butchers' shops will confirm 
our lists. There the animal that stands at the top will 

* Again this term is applied solely to Aberdeen-Angus, by a 
breeder. 



78 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

sell for at least id. per pound more than that which 
stands at • the bottom." Than that nothing could be 
more decisive ; and it is conclusive. 

The London Standard, on the Christmas show of 
1883, said: ''We are not afraid of American compe- 
tition driving the English farmer out of his native land, 
so long as he can produce Aberdeen beef, such as no pas- 
ture except ours grows, and Welsh mutton, which most 
prefer to venison, he need have little dread for the 
pasture." '' The Roast Beef of Old England ! "—that 
has long given place to and been '' Prime Aberdeen." 

A clipping from the London Times, of Tuesday, 
December 31, 1878, says— and the reader will now be 
able to appreciate its significance : " Last week's value 
has been maintained, but it has been with difficulty; 
six shillings per stone means for Scotch cattle, and 
Scotch only. Quotations of the day — Prime Scotch, 
6s. per stone; Herefords, 5s. lod. ; Norfolks, 5s. 8d. to 
5s. lod. ; Lincolns (best) 5s. 8d. to 5s. lod. ; Americans, 
5s. 4d. to, in some instances, 5s. 6d. per stone." 

Mark Lane Express, October 21, 187,8: ''The top 
price for best Scots was 5s. lod. per 8 lbs. ; many good 
Shorthorns did not make more than 5s. to 5s. 4d. per 
8 lbs." The relative value of Shorthorns to other 
breeds is expressed in the same ratio in every other 
market returns of which I have any knowledge. 

Mr. G. T. Turner, in the National Live Stock Jour- 
nal, 1878, says: "The Polled Scots are all the year 
round beasts ; are well fed and full of prime flesh in 
prime parts. They usually top the market, and for 
thick cutting and value for money, at all times, they 
certainly bear the palm." 

The Live Stock Journal, London, 1880, report, says : 
" As to quality, the Scotch breeds occupied pre- 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 79 

eminently the first place this year at all our fat stock 
shows. Scotch cattle are put above all other breeds 
by the London^ butcher. Of the Polled Aberdeen he 
has the highest opinion. The late Mr. McCombie, of 
Tillyfour, who made and maintained the reputation of 
the celebrated breed, was [excellently represented by a 
large consignment bearing his well known (rump) 
mark, M X C. The general quotation may be put at 
6s. per stone of 8 lbs. ; Prime Scots made 6s. 2d., and, 
in some cases of the best Polled Aberdeens, 6s. 4d." 

Mr. McCombie, at a Rothiemay sale, made the fol- 
lowing memorable remarks : " We are deeply indebted 
to our friend and to those noblemen and gentlemen 
who have espoused the welfare of the country by their 
determination to keep our native breed^of polled cattle 
pure, without the mixture of Shorthorns. I admit that 
Shorthorns are useful for crossing ; I admit that a cross 
between a Shorthorn bull and a polled cow is a good 
animal ; but I deny that their quaHfications go farther. 
But if the pure breed is lost, what will your crosses 
become ? Look at a neighboring district where they 
had, since I recollect, the finest breed of polled cattle. 
They introduced Shorthorns ; they have crossed and 
recrossed. Their cattle are white instead of black ; 
they are only the shadows of their former greatness — 
(laughter). The pole-axe is the end of all breeds. Our 
polled breed stands at the top of beef producers, the 
Shorthorns at the bottom. At the great International 
Show at Poissy, all the different breeds were measured 
and weighed. The polled were found the heaviest of 
all breeds by their measurement, the Shorthorns the 
lightest of all breeds — (laughter). London is the 
greatest fat market in Britain, and, as a class, the west- 
end butchers are the greatest and the wealthiest in the 



8o THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

world. What is the great sensation on the great mar- 
ket day? Is it the long dark lines of our polled cattle, 
or is it the long lines of our white and red Shorthorns ? 
On the morning of the great day the onlooker will find 
the west-end butchers, with the best of the country 
butchers, congregated behind and before the black lines, 
and the lines of Shorthorns almost deserted, except by 
a few carcass butchers. Ask the west-end butcher if 
the Shorthorn suits his trade? Ask him how much 
more he will give for a Polled Scot than for a Shorthorn 
per stone? Ask him what value he puts upon the 
descendant of a ;^4,ooo Duchess?" 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A ''PRIME SCOT." 

From an article, written by the '' Druid," in All the 
Year Rounds December 21, 1872, entitled "A Prime 
Scot" — an autobiography, from which we are fain to 
make two extracts, the first and last paragraphs : 

Moriturus vos saluto ! To-morrow morning the pole-axe will 
sink into my forehead ; the day after, my prime joints will be 
exhibited in all the toothsome streaky splendor of fat and lean 
in the shop of that fortunate M^est-end butcher who "clapped 
hands " for me at the Great Christmas Cattle Market. It is my 
fate to be eaten, but no vulgar tooth shall masticate my firm yet 
succulent tissues ; indeed, I have reason to believe that I am all 
bespoken already. I die happy, my mission and my ambition 
have been fulfilled. My worst enemy, if I have one, cannot but 
say, in the language of Peter Allardyce, that "I fill a string 
well." With three comrades, I had the proud position of top- 
ping the Christmas Cattle Market ; in the racy language of the 
lamented John Benzies, I am "beef to the root of the lug," and 
I have a well-grounded conviction that I shall " die well " in the 
sense in which butchers use the term. True, the immortality of 
being exhibited at the Great Smithfield Club Show has been 
denied me owing to an unfortunate congenital lack of perfec- 
tion in the region of the hook bones and a trifling defect of 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 8l 

symmetry behind the shoulder ; but as a rational ox I cannot 
grumble at the decree of fate, and it is something, surely, to 
have topped the Great Christmas Cattle Market. It has not 
been without willing exertions on my part, and incessant atten- 
tion on the part of those who have had the charge of me from 
calf hood till the day I left my home " prime fat," that this dis- 
tinction has been achieved. I have my reward in the proud 
consciousness of that distinction, while my breeder and feeder 
has his in the long price that was given for me without a 
murmur. 

I am a three-year-old. T was born at Tillyfour, the abiding 
place of the "powerful, pushing, and prosperous race" of 
McCombie. In my veins runs the best blood of the breed to 
which I-belong, the Black Polled Aberdeenshire . My genealogy 
goes back to the famous old Queen Mother, the corner-stone of 
the Tillyfour fortunes in the polls. My destiny to die fat was 
fixed from the very hour of my birth, and that I should fulfill 
my destiny a settled scheme— the result of long experience and 
intelligent observation — was sedulously pursued. 

After fully describing the incidents of the fatting pro- 
cess till he was ready to ship to London, he describes 
his arrival there and the closing hours of his life : 

From the Maiden-lane station we were directly driven off to 
the lairs that had been secured for us in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of the cattle market, and spent a pleasant and grateful 
night in the midst of clean straw and plenty of food. Sunday 
was a day of profound and welcome rest, the only incident of 
which was the clipping of the initial " McC." in the long hair on 
the flank of each of us. Long before dawn on the Monday 
morning, the morning of the great Christmas market, we were 
on our way from the lairs to Mr. Giblet's stances hard by the 
western side of the great tower in Copenhagen Fields. It was 
not long after daybreak when the swell butchers came thronging 
around us, pinching, poking, and praising. Mr. Giblet, who 
acts as salesman for Tillyfour, said very little, but stood by with 
an assumption of unconcern — "We were beasts," I had heard 
him say, "that would sell themselves." I was sold, with three 
others, before nine o'clock, and, as I have said, we topped the 
market. Driven back to the lair, I now serenely abide there the 
blow of the pole-axe, conscious that I have deserved well of my 
country, that there is not a coarse bit of meat about me, that I 



82 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

shall be found to have surprisingly little offal, and that after 
I am gone it will lie in the mouth of no man to give me a bad 
name. 

"punch" on polled scots. 

"The only illustrated history of our own times" — 
London Punch — has on more than one occasion heard 
of the fame of the Aberdeen-Angus cattle, and v/e 
quote one of the " jokes of the day " from that journal : 
" Different Droves. — At recent live meat shows much 
attention has been attracted by some particularly fine 
specimens of Polled Scotch cattle. Polled howsoever 
these cattle may be, they are a breed incapable of 
bribery." 



83 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Epicure s Choice. 
THE BEEF. 

The National Live Stock Journal^ June, i88i — • 
"Angus Cattle to the Fore" — says: ''The beef of 
this choice breed brings one to two cents more per 
pound, in the London market, than the best of any 
EngHsh breed ; and the bullocks can be reared at least 
10 per cent, cheaper than horned cattle. Indeed, some 
who have kept polled cattle alongside of horned, both 
in Great Britain and America, say the cost of rearing 
them for a beef market is 20 to even 25 per cent, in 
their favor." 

The French journal, Le Fermier, speaking of the test 
of the beef by the order of the Emperor, at Paris, in 
1862, says: "All the characteristics which denote a 
great aptitude for fattening are combined with those 
which indicate a considerable living weight and an 
eminent yield in solid beef The muscles are every- 
where equally developed, compact, and firm, well mar- 
bled with fat where fat is suitable. Upon all the dorsal 
regions, especially, the Aberdeen take on a thickness 
which gives a great value to animals in a country where 



84 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

roast beef {" ros bif ") and rump steak are rechercJies, 
The flesh of the Aberdeen is of an exquisite flavor, 
and in the London markets a considerable higher price 
than for that of the English or other breeds is obtained. 
The fat, which is stretched in a thick equal covering under 
the skin, or deposited between the muscular masses, is 
of itself a close, fine tissue full of taste and flavor." 

TESTED IN LONDON — IT IS '' THE BEAU IDEAL OF 
COOKS." 

TJie Agricultural Gazette, February 24, 1874, at that 
time the leading Shorthorn organ, had some articles on 
Beef. The writer, in concluding, said : " As a further 
instance of the way this question has been tested by 
the Smith field Club, I may add that I have just been 
informed that Mr. Giblet had a joint on a side table in 
the council room, at the time of the last show, which 
he brought there as a specimen of the meat which a 
prize animal ought to supply." This roast was from 
a two-year steer, consigned the week previously to 
the London market, by Mr. McCombie, of- Tilly- 
four, who received from Mr. Robt. Leeds, chair- 
man of the Agricultural Hall Company, a letter of 
thanks, in which he said : '• I wish particularly to 
thank you for the very best piece of beef we ever had 
on our table during the cattle show." Who could be 
better judges? Last year, at Chicago, were exhibited 
the polled ox, Black Prince, and the famous Shorthorn, 
Clarence Kirklivington. Both of these came to the 
block, and their meat was tested afterwards by the best 
judges in Chicago. We have not sought the answer "in 
the stars " as to which was the " best," that is easily 
imagined. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 85 

We are able to give to the eye a representation 
of what Polled Aberdeen — Prime Aberdeen or Prime 
Scots — beef is like. The following remarks are by that 
excellent authority Mr. George Hendry, the agricultural 
editor of the Free Press, from that paper, commenting 
on the original photograph : 

It is not as dairy cattle but as beef producers that the Polled 
Aberdeen or Angus breed of cattle have come so prominently 
to the front. It is not on account of their milking properties, 
though these we don't disparage, that American purchasers 
come all the way to this country for our blackskins. They come 
here because they have had the shrewdness to perceive that of 
all the breeds of cattle the polled is the nearest approach to a 
hmu ideal beef producer. Carrying an unusually large propor- 
tion of beef to its bone, with little offal and skink bone, the 
polled ox or heifer commands a higher price per pound, say 
from 2s. to 2s 6d. per cwt., in the home market than any other 
animal of a different breed. In addition to this, it carries its 
" meat" on the mast valuable parts, and above all, the quality 
of the flesh of a pure-bred poll is, by connoisseurs, considered 
to be unequalled by that of any other breed. In order to show 
his countrymen how the Polled Aberdeens "cut up," Mr. A. B. 
Matthews, Kansas, has obtained a photograph of the "meat" of 
a two-year-old pure-bred polled ox, fed in the Yale of Alford, 
and which was exposed in the shop of Mr. John Williamson, jr.. 
New Market, Aberdeen. The photograph, which was executed 
by Mr. G. W. Wilson, shows cuts from different parts of the 
animal — the shoulder, the rump, the steak piece, and the 
"Pope's Eye," and the beautifully mixed flesh is well brought 
out. We have never seen beef in which the fat and flesh were 
so well mixed, and with the grain so perfect, and it speaks 
volumes for the breed that this could have been produced in 
an animal only two years old. Mr. James Martin, of Messrs. 
J. & W. Martin, and Mr. James Williamson, whose long experi- 
ence in the cattle trade enables them to speak with authority on 
this subject, say they never saw such a grandly-fleshed animal 
in all their lives. It may be mentioned that he was picked up 
in one of the Alford cattle markets for Mr. Williamson, jr. 
Could the photograph of which we speak be reproduced in some 
of the many excellently illustrated agricultural newspapers of 
America, it would, we doubt not, tend still further to increase 



86 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

the prestige of this valuable breed of cattle on the other side of 
the Atlantic. So long as breeders of polled cattle can produce 
stock of this description, the proud position which the polled 
breed occupies will be assured. 

The Breeder s Gazette^ in 1882 (July 27), also gave 
an engraving of this, and remarked : " It has seldom 
been our fortune to see a more perfect admixture of 
fat and lean in the flesh of any animal." It is this 
intimate admixture of fat between the fibres of the meat 
that constitutes the highest acme of beef perfection. 

IN CHICAGO. 

Mr. T. W. Harvey thus descants on Aberdeen beef: 
*' In London the Aberdeen-Angus is quoted at the top 
of the market, and at Christmas time it brings two 
cents above the market. One of the great annual 
events in Aberdeenshire is the shipment of car loads 
oi these cattle by special trains to the cities, to 
meet the demand for choice beef for the holiday 
festivities, and we understand that it is an Aberdeen- 
Angus roast that the Queen partakes of on Christmas 
day. In Chicago, at the last Fat Stock Show, two 
Aberdeen-Angus cattle were killed, a two-year-old steer 
and a cow. Both were exhibited by the Hon. H. M. 
Cochrane, of Canada. The fat, instead of being in 
great rolls or layers on the outer part of the back and 
down the sides, causing waste and excess to both 
butcher and consumer, was very delicately marbled 
through the lean, producing the most delicious meat, 
and was pronounced by some of our city epicures as 
the finest beef they had ever eaten. The large three- 
year-old Aberdeen-Angus steer, that was awarded sweep 
stakes by the butchers, in three-year-old class, at the 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 8/ 

same show, was not killed, but will be kept for next 
year. A well known business man of Chicago, who 
thoroughly appreciates what is excellent, was so enthu- 
siastic after tasting of the meat of Mr. Cochrane's 
steer, that he declared himself willing to pay forty 
cents a pound the year round for such beef. There 
certainly is a delicacy and lusciousness about the 
Aberdeen-Angus beef that is remarkable; it is beauti- 
fully laid in, and very tender. 

Geary Bros, wrote to The Gazette, March, 1885, of 
their steer '' Black Prince" : 

Thh price per pound which we received for Black Prince was 
twelve cents. AVe sold him to N. T. Croxon, of the Union Stock 
Yards Restaurant, and in a letter received from Croxon, under 
date of December 25, he says : "Black Prince, as you suppose, 
is all eaten, with the exception of some very fine corned beef, in 
barrel, which is disappearing very fast, and is delicious. The 
first of him I served up cold to the delegates of the St. Louis 
Stockmen's Convention, commonly called the ' cow boys,' in 
which were represented the heaviest cattle interests of the 
country, and they pronounced the beef to be very fine, as indeed 
it was, and I can answer for it myself." Black Prince was sold 
on his merits and without any pressure being brought to bear, 
as was the case with his more successful rival, Clarence, and no 
part of him was ever returned as being unfit for use, as in the 
case of Clarence, according to report. If it comes to a poiht as 
between the value of the two carcasses from a butcher's or con- 
sumer's point of view, we can't understand upon what the com- 
mittee based their decision. 



TESTED AT KANSAS CITY. 

" They do things thoroughly in America. The result 
of the competition for carcasses of fat cattle at Kansas 
Fat Stock Show, last year, resulted in a victory over 
all breeds for the Polled Aberdeen-Angus cow Pride 
|Fd of Blairshinnoch 4658, A portion of the sirloin 



88 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

was sent along with a corresponding portion from the 
sirloin of a prize Galloway grade steer, as a gift to the 
editor and business manager of the Kansas City Live 
Stock Journal. These gentlemen had the samples of 
meat both cooked alike. A party of six gentlemen 
were invited to the table at which the meat was served, 
and on tasting it, five, including the host, pronounced 
in favor of the Aberdeen-Angus cow against one for 
the Galloway grade. Rump steaks from the carcasses 
were served at a restaurant, and five persons served 
with it, of whom four pronounced for the Aberdeen- 
Angus beef. ' To sum up the result — Both samples of 
beef were exceptionally choice and sweet, and the 
points of difference may be briefly stated : Aberdeen 
four-year-old cow — Flesh well covered with fat ; lean 
meat, dark colored, and both fat and lean juicy, mellow 
and tender; somewhat coarse grained ; flavor excellent. 
Grade Galloway two-year-old steer — Flesh moderately 
well covered with fat ; lean meat light colored ; fat 
more gristly, and lean meat not so tender on outside ; 
close grained ; flavor gamey.' " 

At the late Chicago Fat Stock Show, Mr, P. D. 
Armour, of Chicago, purchased the carcasses of Hut- 
cheon, Kinloss, and Turiff, for distributing the beef 
among his friends — a no mean compliment to the 
Angus. 

At the Chicago Fat Stock Show much interest 
attaches to the result of the competition for the best 
dressed carcasses. The animals entered are followed 
" to the block " and a tabulated statement made of the 
yield of meat and offal. This year forty animals of 
various breeds and ages were slaughtered and dressed. 
In the competition the Polled Aberdeen-Angus two- 
year-old ox Benholm, belonging to Mr. J. J. Hill, gives 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 89 

the best result, as will be seen in next chapter. The 
ox was bred by Mr. Smith, of Benholm Castle, Scotland. 
The Breeder's Gazette said: "Mr. J. J. Hill's pure 
bred Aberdeen-Angus bullock Benholm's carcass was 
served by Mr. F. T. Croxson, at the Exchange 
restaurant, Union Stock Yards. A Gazette reporter 
dropped into the Exchange Buildings a few days since 
and caught Superintendent G. T. Williams just as he 
was picking his teeth after dining off a roast from the 
doddie. ' No man alive ever ate a better piece of beef,' 
was his reply to a query as to how the animal ' panned 
out ' on the table. This declaration pleased Mr. 
Croxson very much, as he had selected Benholm as his 
choice after an extended examination of the entire lot, 
and now that he had tested him from the consumer's 
stand-point, was not at all disappointed. He pro- 
nounced him as fine as could be grown, excelling even 
Black Prince, which he had purchased last year, in that 
he was not over-ripe, but was just ' done to perfection.' " 
Mr. John B. Sherman, President of the Stock Yards, 
remarked, with a smack of the lips, that he would 
"have to dine offjBenholm for a week before he would 
pass^his opinion on him," which may be construed to 
mean that the flavor of the beef tickled his palate not 
a Httle. Again it was "40c. a pound all the year 
round ! " 



90 



CHAPTER X. 

" Tuning Up^ 

THE POLLS AT AMERICAN FAT STOCK SHOWS. 

Aberdeen-Angus cattle have appeared but very spar- 
ingly as yet at the American fat stock shows. No 
one could expect it to have been otherwise. But the 
exhibits have been of a kind to " naturally furnish the 
breeders with plenty of thunder " — as the Farmer s 
Rcvieiv declared in 1884. We certainly expect lots of 
music. Just now we are only tuning up. 

As the system in America is, these fat stock shows 
make each animal exhibited an object lesson of the 
quality of the breed from which it is drawn ; so we 
have concluded to give the individual record of these 
Polls in this chapter. We think the best method is to 
treat of each year by itself 

1883. 

KANSAS CITY. 

At this show^he following Aberdeen-Angus animals 
appeared: Geary's "Black Prince;" Col. G. W. 
Henry's "Bride;" Gudgell & Simpson's " Bruce's 
Queen;" Mathews' " Paris Heifer." The two former 
were shown in one class, the two latter in another, and 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 



91 



they stood in the order given. The class was open to 
Galloways. " Black Prince " took the breed champion- 
ship, also second against all in three-year-old early 
maturity class. " Black Prince " and " Bride " will 
come under notice again. " Bruce's Queen " and 
'' Paris Heifer" are still alive and '' doing well." 

CHICAGO. 



At this show the Aberdeen-Angus present were: 
Geary's three-y^ar-old " Black Prince ; " M. H. Coch- 
rane's two-year-old '' Waterside Jock," and cow, over 
three-years-old, " Duchess 2nd." There was thus only 
one in each of these classes, and they '' got the premiums 
first and were admired afterwards." "Black Prince" 
was breed champion. " Waterside Jock " took the $50 
premium as best two-year old dressed carcass. This 
animal was imported, for the purpose of exhibition at 
this show, from Scotland, where he had obtained some 
minor breed prizes. 

Said the Breeder s Gazette, October 30, 1884, in an 
article "Dressed Carcasses at the Fat Stock Show : " 
" This animal attracted much attention, and was a good 
advertisement for the breed both on foot and on the 
hooks. He dressed the largest per cent, of net carcass 
to gross weight of any tw^o-year-old steer awarded a 
first prize in this ring." 



Year. 


Breed. 


Live 
Weight. 


Per cent. 

Dressed n^^fop.! 

Weight. ?Jtive 

Weight. 


Per cent, 
of profit- 
able to 
Live 
Weight. 


1883 
1882 
1881 


Aberdeen -Angus 

Grade Hereford 

Grade Shorthorn. 


1,785 
1,735 
1,460 


1,203 

1,115 

977 


.67 
.64 
.66 


.81 

.76 

.78 



92 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

The following is the report of the judging committee 
on "Waterside Jock:" "The steer was very ripe, 
considering the age. The distribution of meat in the 
best parts of the carcass leaves no room to doubt that 
he would cut an unusually large proportion of net to 
gross. This steer was near perfection in all that goes 
to make up a profitable butcher's beast, thickly covered 
with the best quality of firm, mellow, and well-marbled 
flesh." 

The cow class was open to all breeds. There were 
three entries. The prize went to " Duchess 2nd," the 
committee reporting as follows : " The first premium 
was awarded a cow that nearly approached the highest 
standard of perfection for a butcher's beast. Compact 
and blocky ; fine in bone ; small head and short, thin 
neck ; thickly covered with firm, mellow flesh ; quar- 
ters nicely proportioned and well meated down to hock 
and gambrel joint." 

"Black Prince" and "Jock" occupied the class 
" other pure breeds not named " — there being yet no 
regular class for Aberdeen-Angus. The class report on 
" Black Prince " was as follows : " This grand specimen 
was a compact, blocky steer, with straight top, bottom, 
and side lines, and, considering the weight, was fine in 
bone, and there was but slight room for improvement. 
The steer was thickly covered with firm, mellow flesh, 
of that extra quality to be found in prime steers ripe 
for the block." 

This animal, as noted, took the breed sweepstakes. 
He also took the $50 sweepstakes for best three-year-old 
steer or spayed heifer, " to be judged by butchers." 
The committee reported on this competition as follows : 
" The above ring, at the present show, was composed 
of twenty animals of superior merit, representing all 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 93 

the leading beef breeds and their grades. Considering 
the difference in breeds and the methods of feeding 
and handling, the cattle were quite uniform in form 
and quality. The cattle were fatted and in prime con- 
dition for slaughter. The work of deciding as to the 
respective merits of such a superior lot of cattle was a 
laborious undertaking, where, with scarcely an excep- 
tion, all the animals nearly approached the standard of 
a perfect butcher's bullock. The sweepstakes premium 
was awarded to the Polled Angus steer, " Black Prince," 
exhibited by Geary Brothers, of London, Ont. This 
steer is a very superior specimen of the Breed, and 
could be but little improved in all that goes to make 
up a profitable beast for the butcher, and a desirable 
carcass for the consumer. The superior handling qual- 
ities of this steer gave every consumer assurance of a 
very superior quality of meat. The steer, considering 
weight, was fine in bone, and would cut a large propor- 
tion of net to gross. The top, bottom, and side lines 
could be but little improved. This steer was heavily 
and evenly quartered, and thickly and evenly covered 
in the most valuable portions of the carcass with firm, 
mellow meat." 

1884. 

KANSAS CITY. 

The following Aberdeen- Angus appeared : From 
Indiana Blooded-Stock Co., ''Blaine" and "Logan" 
(one-year-old) ; Col. Henry's '' Bride." There was one 
Aberdeen-Angus grade- " Abernethy," from the Amer- 
ican Aberdeen-Angus Breeders Association, Indepen- 
dence, Mo. And there was one cross-bred — " Burleigh's 
Pride," also from the Indiana Company. 



94 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

At this show a clean sweep of the spoils was made 
by the Aberdeen- Angus. We shall first note that 
" Abernethy " was second in the two-year-old grade 
class, and was first in the like class for " cost of pro- 
duction ; " that " Blaine " and " Logan " wtx^ first and 
second in yearling classes for early maturity and cost of 
prodiictio7i. 

But to Col. G. W. Henry, of Angus Park, Kansas 
City, Mo., and his imported cow — "Bride" — belonged 
the honors of this memorable meeting. Having been 
favored with one of the colonel's herd catalogues, we 
cannot do better than quote the particulars as to 
" Bride," as there given : *' Her victories at the Kan- 
sas City Fat Stock Show, in November, 1884, have 
never been equalled by any living cow or steer. I 
quote from the Live Stock Indicator of November 6, 
1884, which tells the story of her triumphs better than 
I can hope to: 'AH things considered, the cow 
" Bride 3rd " of Blairshinnoch, had the most remark- 
able series of successes ever achieved by any animal in 
one season at a fat stock show in America, if not in 
the world, having won premiums as follows : First, as 
best thoroughbred cow of any age or breed, three-years- 
old or over, $50 ; sweepstakes as best cow, grade or 
thoroughbred, three-years-old or over, $75 ; sweepstakes 
as best carcass of steer, spayed or barren heifer or cow, 
three-years-old or over, $75 ; and sweepstakes as best 
dressed carcass of any age, $100. As to her keep or 
preparation, her owner certifies that she ran in pasture 
from April to November, 1883 ; from November, 1883, 
to March, 1884, she ran in an open field with a stack of 
both straw and hay, but no other shelter and no other 
feed; from March to August 26, 1884, she ran in pas- 
ture, except during one week at the Kansas City Inter- 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 95 

State Fair, and one week at the Kansas City Fat Stock 
Show; during 1883 she had no feed of any description 
but that mentioned. As he had a constant hope that 
this cow would breed, she had no grain, which pre- 
vented her from getting excessively fat. She having 
refused service from April until August, he supposed 
her in calf and delayed feeding her, on that account, 
until August 26, 1884. Since August 26, 1884, she has 
been kept in a stall, and consumed 5 bushels of shelled 
corn, 340 lbs. of corn-chop, 120 lbs. of wheat bran, 
130 lbs. of oil-meal, what hay she would eat — say 
750 lbs. — and nothing else. Taking into account the 
slight preparation given this cow to fit her for such a 
contest, in a show containing more than a hundred 
beasts, all well-nigh models, her triumph, and that of 
the breed, was great. She weighed, previous to killing, 
1,395 lbs., and dressed 881 lbs. of net meat, or 63.15 
per cent, of her gross weight. All of her premiums, 
amounting to $300, will be duplicated by the American 
Aberdeen-Angus Association, making her entire win- 
nings in the one show $600.' " 

The quality of her meat is noted elsewhere. 

The late Mr. H. D. Adamson, who acted with general 
acceptance as a judge at this Kansas City Show, in a 
report he sent to the (Edinburgh) North British Agri- 
culturist, thus referred to " Bride : " " Mr. G. W. 
Henry, of Angus Park, walked away with first ribbon 
for his Angus cow ' Bride 3rd ' of Blairshinnoch. She 
is on short legs, rather square in quarter, and only half 
fat ; however, her quality and symmetry passed her 
first amongst nine entries, representatives of Shorthorn, 
Hereford, and Holstein. A great astonishment, how- 
ever, was in store for both exhibitor and the public when 
the little cow met the moving monster from Bow Park, 



g6 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

Canada — a heifer over four years of age, scaling over 
2,600 lbs., or 1,200 lbs. more than herself: girth, 9 feet 
2 inches. 

"The Angus had symmetry only, but the Canadian, 
in addition to perfect symmetry, boasted of enormous 
weight ; but her handle was most indifferent. At this 
time the awards were made by three practical butchers, 
and they took a practical view, thought the blubber 
useless, and gave the cow sweepstakes to the lucky 
* Bride 3rcf.' She was also entered for the dressed 
carcass prize, and was killed for that competition 
shortly after. Fortune did not desert her owner, for 
not only did the aged prize fall to her, but also the 
sweepstake for the best of all carcasses — a wonderful 
feat for a half-fed Angus, and netting $600 to her 
owner for his pluck. The carcass prizes were awarded 
by a different set of judges. ' Bride 3rd's ' victory was 
a great feather in the cap of the Angus men, who were 
poorly represented in numbers, the only entry in the 
Angus class being a wonderful sappy yearling belonging 
to the Indiana Company, and showing a daily gain of 
2.70 lbs., and was awarded the premium of the show 
for early maturity T 

But that was not all that the results of this show put 
to the credit of the '' Champion Poll." The best 
animal " bred and fed by the exhibitor " was half — in 
this case the better half — an Angus. This was the cow 
*' Burleigh's Pride," an Aberdeen-Hereford. She was 
awarded, in the class just noted, the Breeder s Gazette 
handsome challenge shield. This animal has created a 
great deal of interest. Her sire was a Ballindalloch 
yearling polled bull. Her dam was a yearling Hereford 
heifer. She was polled — a " black-whiteface," All her 
good points were derived from the sire. We may com- 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 97 

plete the future history of the cow here. At the show 
at Kansas City, the following year, she was elected best 
cow in the yard, weighing 1,850 lbs., still smooth and 
gay ; the Breeder s Gazette characterising her as " cer- 
tainly a very remarkable animal." We believe she was 
purchased at the late Chicago Fat Stock Show, by Dr. 
C. J. Alloway, late of Montreal, now of Grand Forks, 
Dakota, who has there started a large Angus and Here- 
ford breeding establishment. His purpose being to 
show her, as a sample of the breeder's art, to his 
visitors. 

The late H. D. Adamson, in his report, thus wrote 
of this cow's appearance, in her class, at Kansas City, 
in 1884: " Nothing, however, could touch the beauti- 
ful two-year-old black heifer cross of polled bull (Bal- 
lindalloch) on an imported Hereford cow, having ' Sir 
Benjamin ' (1387) blood in her veins — neck, vein, shoul- 
ders, back and loins covered with the primest beef, her 
only fault being the light thigh, that and the white face 
being the only points of the Hereford. As it is always 
conceded that the sire has the stronger impress, Angus 
men naturally laid claim to their full share of the 
honor." 

CHICAGO. 

The following Aberdeens appeared: Cochrane's 
three-year-old " Netherwood Jock," Harvey's two-year- 
old ** Paris Favorite," Indiana Company's '' Blaine " and 
''Logan," and Geary's " Black Prince." There were 
also two grades — " Abernethy," and (Cochrane's) 
"Quality." J. J. Hill, of St. Paul, had also a large, 
fine lot of pure and cross-bred Aberdeen oxen, which 
had been selected by his agent, Mr. Dolby, in the north 
of Scotland. Unfortunately, on account of the non- 



98 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

arrival in time of the age certificate, they were unjustly, 
many thought, ruled out of competition. 

** Netherwood Jock " was awarded the breed sweep- 
stakes. *' Blaine" was awarded first premium for early 
maturity (''gain per day"). " Abernethy " got the 
blue for '' best carcass two-year-old and under ; while 
" Quality " got the blue for the best dressed carcass ot 
any animal under two. 

At this show we see the last of *' Black Prince." 
This animal had been awarded a second premium in his 
class at a Smithfield, London, England, and had been 
imported by his enterprising owner — one of the chief 
props of the breed. On leaving Scotland he weighed 
2,600 lbs. He lost 200 lbs. in his three months jour- 
neyings, previous to his appearance at Chicago, in 1883. 
He was just out of quarantine, and therefore had lost 
bloom — so vitally essential to the fortunes of champion 
winners. " He has traveled more than any ox that 
ever lived." At this, 1884, show, he had one vote for 
the grand sweepstakes, and it was conceded that the 
carcass had more lean meat than any bullock of its age, 
size or weight, besides dressing over seventy-one per 
cent. 

H. D. Adamson, after these 1884 shows, wrote to the 
Breeders Gazette: "To call attention to the remark- 
able success the breed has achieved on the block at the 
late exhibitions at Kansas City and Chicago, the prizes 
being awarded by men who acknowledge that they have 
never handled the breed, dead or alive. -^ * * 
These are facts, and when the breed is numerically 
stronger we shall find the butchers here as willing to 
give the breed a special quotation as those in the old 
country." 

It used to be an old ''say" that Aberdeen-Angus 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 99 

were, compared with the Shorthorn, of slower growth, 
during the first year of their Hfe, but made up in the 
second. The average gain per day of the four Aber- 
deen-Angus yearHngs exhibited in 1884 was 2.41 ; 
Shorthorns, 2.15; Shorthorns (1883), 1.62. Herefords 
are left far behind — the highest average of these being, 
in 1879, 2.1S. 

Thus, one by one, these old " says," which have been 
so long, without dispute, accepted for gospel, get 
dispelled ! 

T885. 

KANSAS CITY. 

There were of Aberdeen-Angus, the Indiana Com- 
pany's '* Blaine " and " Logan " (two-year-olds), Gudgell 
& Simpson's " Sandy " (yearling), their " Alex " (calf), 
and Estill & Elliot's '' Felix (calf). There were of 
grades, Estill & Elliot's *' Bloom " (two-year-old), and 
'* Clarence " (yearling), besides '' Burleigh's Pride," cow. 

The breed championship went to Gudgell & Simp'son's 
*' Sandy." The Breeder's Gazette noting him thus : 
" This steer, ' Sandy,' is one of the very best blacks 
yet seen at these competitions, and his subsequent 
winning of the championship of the entire show and 
the medal offered by the Polled Cattle Society of Scot- 
land (open to all ages) stamps him one of the best 
things yet seen from the ' doddie ' ranks. He is a 
marvel of symmetry, well covered, and smooth as an 
^gg from end to end. His weight at nineteen months 
is 1,455 lbs." 

'* Sandy " is a son of Gudgell & Simpson's well 
known prize bull '' Knight of St. Patrick " — " Old 
Pat " — and thus a half brother to their remarkable 



lOO THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

'' Black Knight,"* declared by Mr. Wm. Watson to be 
the '' best two-year-old he ever saw." 

In all the early maturity classes of two-year-olds, 
yearlings and calves, the Aberdeen-Angus made a 
clean sweep — another proof to the contrary of the 
idea that the breed is of slow growth in its younger 
years. Estill & Elliot's grades took second places in 
their respective classes. In sweepstakes grade cows, 
" Burleigh's Pride," as already noted, was again best cow 
on the ground. " Sandy " was second, in the competi- 
tion for grand sweepstakes, against some of the finest 
oxen that have yet appeared. There were no Aberdeen- 
Angus slaughtered. 

CHICAGO. 

The following animals were exhibited : J. J. Hill's 
" Benholm " and '' Wildy," Indiana Company's '' Blaine" 
and ''Logan" — two-year-olds; Gudgell & Simpson's 
"Sandy " (yearling), and " Alex " (calf) ; of grades, 
Hill's " Turriff " (three-quarters Aberdeen.) 

" Benholm " was awarded sweepstakes and the Polled 
Cattle Society's medal. 

Of the class in which " Benholm " appeared, the 
Breeder s Gazette said : " The two-year-old entries 
comprised Mr. J. J. Hill's ' Benholm ' and * Wildy,' and 



*" Uncle William Watson, whose knowledge of polled cattle 
is probably superior to that of any man living in this country, 
started last week for Turlington, Neb., where he takes charge 
of Mr. T. W. Harvey's herd. Uncle Billy took with him his bull 
'Black Knight,' now two years old, out of 'Black Cap,' and 
got by 'Knight of St. Patrick.' 'Black Knight' was bred by 
Messrs. Gudgell & Simpson, of Independence, Mo., and cost 
Mr. Watson an even $2,000." — Kansas City Live Stock Indicator, 
February 25, 1886. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. lOl 

the Indiana Blooded Stock Company's ' Blaine ' and 
' Logan/ The best steer of the lot (easily enough), 
' Benholm,' was not allowed to compete in this ring, for 
lack of evidence as to age, but he demonstrated his 
quality in good style a few days later (upon receipt of 
the necessary documents) by winning the consolation 
two-year-old championship of the entire show. The 
other entry from North Oaks (' Wildy ') although 
inferior to ' Benholm ' is yet a good representative of 
the breed." 

The following is the committee's report on the prize 
steer '' Wildy : " " The first premium was awarded a 
very fine model of a butcher's beast, with form, style 
and finish seldom excelled. Considering age this steer 
was remarkably well matured, and the superior hand- 
ling qualities gave assurance of a carcass with a large 
proportion of edible meat. This steer was thickly 
covered with firm, mellow flesh, and with a length and 
thickness of loin seldom seen in two-year-old steers. 
The fineness of bone, nicely proportioned quarters, 
well filled twist, left no doubt as to the unusually large 
proportion of net to gross that would show to the 
credit of the carcass." 

Of the yearling " Sandy," the Gazette: '' Gudgell & 
Simpson's grand yearling, ' Sandy,' by ' Knight of St. 
Patrick.' stood alone in the ring for that age, and was 
cheerfully accorded the Society's first prize. This steer 
looks better every time we see him, and all through the 
week divided the honors with the roan Shorthorn and 
Mr. Earl's Hereford as one of the ' three best yearlings ' 
in the show. He is smooth, thick, and level in his 
flesh, and, as a two-year-old, will be a hard one to get 
over. He will be looked for w^ith considerable interest 
another year." 



102 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

His weight was 1,470 lbs., a gain per day of 2.48, 
nearly 2 lbs., at one year and seven months. 

The judges report of him is : '* The fineness of bone, 
perfection of outline, gave evidence of good breeding 
and excellent feeding qualities, while the growth and 
finish of the steer left no room to doubt the skill of 
the feeder. The steer was a model butchers' and 
feeders' beast and only requires continued skillful 
handling to ensure a bullock of the highest degree of 
excellence." Such is the tribute paid by the com- 
mittee. The latest accounts we have of this steer are 
that his progress is such as to make "rivals uneasy." 

There was but one entry in the calf ring, and the 
first premium was awarded to the calf '' Alex," exhib- 
ited by Messrs. Gudgell & Simpson, of Independence, 
Mo. '* It would be difficult to suggest an improvement 
in the make-up of this calf, which only needs the same 
handling as in the past to ensure a very creditable and 
perfect specimen of the breed." — Gazette. 

In the Consolation Class " Benholm " was best of all 
two-year-olds, and ** Sandy " best of all yearlings in the 
show. 

'* Benholm " (weight — 2 years 9 months — 1,955 lbs.) 
drew the prize for the largest percentage of carcass to 
live weight — '' thus repeating last year's experience " of 
the breed. 

" Benholm " shows the highest — 71.4 — which is also 
the highest result given by any beast of any age. " To 
win the carcass prize in the three-year-old ring, and 
out-dress all competitors with this two-year-old, is cer- 
tainly an honor of which Mr. Hill may well feel proud, 
and reflects additional lustre upon the fame of the 
Aberdeen doddies as prime butchers* beasts. ' Ben- 
holm ' was also the winner of the Polled Cattle Society's 



THE BREED THAT BE.VTS THE RECORD. I03 

medal, and his carcass was served by Mr. F. T. Croxson, 
at the Exchani^e restaurant, Union Stock Yards." 



GRADES. 

The Gazette s report in this section is given : "■ The 
exhibit of this year shoAvs greater average weight, in 
proportion to the average age, than that of any former 
year. An analysis of the average weights and ages of 
the twenty-nine steers, shown at the late show, gives 
the following result : Twelve grade Herefords, shown 
at an average age of three years six months and five 
days, give an average weight of i ,070 lbs. ; an average 
gain per day, from birth, of between 1.60 and 1.61 lbs. 
Thirteen grade Shorthorns, at an average age of three 
years six months and sixteen days, show an average 
weight of 2,037 lbs. ; an average gain per day, from birth, 
of between 1.57 and 1.58. This showing is rather favor- 
able to the get of the Hereford bull ; but the three cross- 
bred Angus-Shorthorns, shown by Mr. J. J. Hill, outdo 
either Shorthorn or Hereford grades. -^ ^ * The 
trio of this blood, shown from North Oaks, at an average 
age of three years four months and nineteen days, gave 
an average weight of a fraction over 2,271 lbs.; an 
average gain per day, since birth, of about 1.88 lbs. 

'' The thirteen grade Shorthorn yearlings shown had 
an average weight of 1,257 lbs., ^^ an average age of 
nineteen months and nineteen days, an average gain 
per day, since birth, of 2.15 lbs. The sixteen grade 
Herefords came into the ring with an average weight 
of 1,375 lbs., at an average age of twenty-one months, 
average gain per day of nearly 2.2 1 lbs. The Aberdeen- 
Angus entry, Mr. Estill's ' Flash' weighed 1,360 lbs. at 
twenty months, an average gain per day of 2.25 lbs. 



I04 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

Mr. Lucien Scott's ' Last Chance ' (grade Holstein) 
weighed 1,300 lbs. at twenty-two months, average gain 
per day, since birth, 1.89, The average age of the 
thirty-one animals shown was twenty months and four- 
teen days ; average weight 1,322 lbs. (within a fraction) ; 
average pain per day 2.17. 

''Mr. J. J. Hill's polled Scot 'Turriff' (cross-bred 
Angus-Shorthorn), yielding 1,404 lbs. (dressed weight), 
and netting 68.1 per cent., had the honor of drawing 
the prize for quality of {inost edible) beef. Mr. P. D. 
Armour, of Chicago, purchased the carcasses of 
' Hutcheon' and ' Kinloss' (and we think of 'Turriff ' 
also), distributing the beef among his friends." 

The Fanner^ s Revieiv, Chicago, in an editorial article, 
November 25, 1885, said: "Edible meat is or should 
be the standard aim of the breeder and exhibitor of 
fat stock " — so that the point of the following comment 
from the same paper will be apparent : " Breeders of 
Scotch hornless cattle were not a little consoled when 
J. J. Hill's grade Angus steer, 'Turriff carried away 
the premium for best three-year-old carcass and also 
prize for carcass showing most edible beef. Having 
gained these two most important awards it was natural 
to suppose that sweepstakes would also have fallen to 
his lot. But no; for a grade Hereford, called 'Joe,' 
bred by Seabury & Sample, took this." 

The Gazette said the " exhibit was small, but first- 
class." The National Live Stock Journal said it was 
** small, but select." We are satisfied with the record 
not only of this, but of the previous two years. We 
are satisfied that it only requires a short time for the 
breed to " Clement-Stephenson " all others on this side, 
as it has done so often in Europe — and to make our 
rivals permanently " uneasy ! " 



I05 



CHAPTER XL 



APOTHEOSIS. 



Part. L 



THE CENTENARY SHOW OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY. 

It is not intended to go into a history of " the 
greatest victories ever achieved by cattle — which have 
been won by the Aberdeen Polled," in France and 
Bvitain. That would be writing the chief portion of 
a separate undertaking, which would require to be 
entitled ^* History of the Aberdeen-Angus Breed in 
the Show-yards of the World.*' 

We shall just enumerate the most colossal of these, 
by which, in the march to fame, they have secured 
supremacy. The first great demonstration they made 
— proving to the world that they were a breed of the 
first order — was at Paris, in 1856, thirty years ago, 
when they were awarded '' the great gold medal of 
France " for their superior excellences. 

In 1862 they were, at Poissy, France, awarded, ''in 
the person " of a noble steer, the championship of the 
world, and had bestowed on them the Prince Albert 
Cup, value $500. 



I06 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

In 1878, again at Paris, their double victory need 
hardly be alkided to. 

Coming to England, at Birmingham they have been 
champions in 1867, 1871, 1872, 1883, 1884, 1885. At 
Smithfield they were champions in 186;^, 1871, 188 1, 
1885, The double victories of the years 188 1 and 1885 
are specially and peculiarly rememberable in the annals 
of show-yard stock. 

These do not take into account the instances in 
which they have been best female, or best ox, or reserve ; 
or again, the cases in which they have supplied half 
the champions by crosses. These are the greatest 
victories ever achieved by animals of the bovine kind 
in open competition with the world. 

For several reasons it is desirable to give to the 
world a compiled synopsis of deeds and opinions of 
the 1884 Centenary Show of the National Scottish 
Society; also of the year 1885, at Birmingham and 
Smithfield. The latter are — though but '' one " of the 
greatest victories — the most recent. And by giving 
this analysis and selection, it will serve to show to the 
breeder on this side what such a record of victory 
means and establishes. It is of surpassing interest to 
others besides the enthusiasts of the champion poll. 

These, representing the breeding and feeding demon- 
strations of the breed, will ever be of prime import- 
ance to Aberdeen-Angus breeders, so we first give an 
account of 



THE GREAT CENTENARY MEETING OF THE HIGHLAND 
SOCIETY. 

We extract from the official report of the Centenary 
Show of the Highland Agricultural Society, at Edin- 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. I07 

burgh, 1884, written by Rev. John Gillespie, M.A., of 
Mouswald, director of the society, and editor of the 
"Galloway Herd Book," the following on the ''Polled 
Angus or Aberdeen : " " The entries of this splendid 
and deservedly popular breed of cattle were the most 
numerous in the show-yard, there being 53 bulls and 104 
cows and heifers, making the very handsome total of 1 57 
head. At no former show of this or any other society 
has there been such an extensive display of the northern 
polls, and the quality of the exhibits was even more 
conspicuous and remarkable than the number. Indeed, 
it may be safely said that there was no department of 
this Centenary Show, either animate or inanimate, 
which made so deep an impression on the vast crowds 
of visitors as the Polled Angus or Aberdeen cattle. 
Every class contained a large number of animals of the 
highest personal merit, and they were brought out in 
a state of perfect bloom, which reflected the greatest 
credit on the exhibitors and herdsmen who tended 
them. It not unfrequently happens with the turn out 
of all breeds, at shows, that a numerous entry leads to 
a lowering of the average merit, but far from this being 
the case here, the average excellence was never so high 
in most of the classes, notably in the aged bulls and 
cows. The judges had a difficult task in awarding the 
prizes where the competition was so wide and the 
merit so evenly balanced, but they discharged their 
duties with the utmost care and discrimination. 

'' The fifteen aged bulls in the catalogue comprised 
no fewer than three first prize winners at former shows 
of the society. These were Sir George Macpherson 
Grant's six-year-old Justice (1462) ; Mr. Anderson of 
Daugh's seven-year-old Prince Albert of Baads (1336) ; 
and Mr. George Wilken's of Waterside of P'orbes' four- 



I08 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

year-old bull The Black Knight (1809). The greater 
part of the time occupied with this class seemed to be 
spent in determining whether Justice (1462), or Prince 
Albert (1336) was to be awarded the much coveted 
ticket. They are both magnificent bulls, and increasing 
age has in no degree impaired their splendid qualities. 
The fiat was eventually given in favor of Justice, 
which is an extremely gay, attractive bull, showing 
beautiful symmetry and quality, with an immense 
quantity of flesh on the most valuable parts. Prince 
Albert has never been beaten in a lengthened show- 
yard career against the best of his day, and he was a 
popular favorite, as he was well entitled to be, with his 
immense level frame covered with a thick covering of 
flesh, and wonderful activity for his age. Justice 
having won in this hotly contested fight, it was a fore- 
gone conclusion that he should win the cup as the best 
male. The Black Knight, which was placed third, was 
not in quite such good form as at Inverness in 1883, 
when he was first in the aged class, but he is deep and 
thick, and altogether handsome." 

" The two dozen cows forward out of the 34 entered 
in the catalogue, presented one of the most magnifi- 
cent spectacles, not only in the breed, but in the show- 
yard itself. The dozen chosen in the short leet were 
splendid cows. The task of the judges in this compe- 
tition was an extremely arduous one, and they took 
every pains in the discharge of it. Eventually Mr. 
George Wilken, Waterside of Forbes, was assigned the 
coveted first ticket, with Waterside Matilda 2nd (6312), 
a three-year-old cow, first in the two-year-old class at 
the show of the Highland Society at Inverness, in 
1883, and which was the champion at Aberdeen the 
week preceding the Centenary Show. She is altogether 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. IO9 

an almost model cow, being round, straight, thick, and 
level. She was followed closely by Sir George Mac- 
pherson Grant's Electra (4186); the five-year-old Erica 
cow from Ballindalloch, which was placed second. She 
has true feminine character, fine in bone, and specially 
good in her forequarters, though she looks a little defi- 
cient in her hocks." 

Justice took the Cup as the* best male, and also 
headed the Ballindalloch first prize group. 

Waterside Matilda, the winner in an unrivalled class 
of cows, headed Mr. Wilken's first prize family. 

''THE INCOMPARABLE." 

Justice has also won The McCombie Prize at Aber- 
deen. He is out of the original Jilt (973) by Elcho ; 
which was out of the original Erica (843), by Juryman 
(404), the first Jilt bull bred at Ballindalloch— 



Bright r454> -! '^^^^^ Prince (366.) 
Juryman ^404)).^ B.ight(4J4). ^ Nourmahall (726.) 
Elcho (595). <! ( JILT (973.) 

i ERICA (843.) 
Justice (1462). -{ 

' Black Prince (366.) 
Jilt — - ' 

Beauty of Tillyfour 2nd [1180.) 



{ 

(973). i 



Justice is thus a grand living example of the happy 
effects of the " inter-nicking " of the Ballindalloch 
"twin-star" tribes — the Ericas and Jilts. 

In a spirit worthy the title of national enterprisCy 
this great modern instance of show-yard success and 
supremacy, the modern Champion and Representative 
of the Breed — a perfect King of Beasts— has been 
imported for use in The Goodwin Park Herd and The 
McCombie Herd, personally by that well known 
doddie enthusiast, Judge J. S. Goodwin, of Beloit, 



no THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

Kansas, where in the future he may be seen and 
'' heard from." 

As pointed out by the Breeder s Gazette^ of Chicago, 
and the Live Stock Journal, of London, England, there 
is a pecuHar interest in this transaction — to consum- 
mate which Mr. Goodwin made a special trip to Britain 
— insomuch as it was in The Goodwin Park Herd that 
great Judge, the very distinguished brother of Justice, 
had his last abiding place. Breeders of polled cattle 
on this side will hail the advent of Justice with 
enthusiasm, and will, as one has expressed it, t/iroiv up 
their hats over it ! 

Prince Albert, through his Ballindalloch sire Bach- 
elor, traces to much of the same Jilt blood — as, to 
Juryman (404), and Trojan (402) by Black Prince (366.) 

The Black Knight shows the same on both sides ; 
sire of dam of sire is Black Prince (366), sire of dam 
is Black Prince (366), and sire of grand-dam is Black 
Prince (366.) 

Portraits of Justice may be found besides the one 
given here, which was engraved by the publishers of 
The Live Stock Journal, London, in Macdonald & 
Sinclair's " History," and in Vol. X. of " The Polled 
Herd Book;" of The Black Knight, Waterside Ma- 
tilda 2nd, and Flush 2nd, also in Vol. X. of '' The 
Polled Herd Book." 

Of the cows. Waterside Matilda 2nd (6312) is by 
Pride Knight of the Shire (1699), and Erica Electra 
by Pride Petrarch (1258) — the former bull a McCombie 
Cup winner; the latter a Paris, 1878, winner. Flush 
2nd has Black Prince, Windsor, and Napoleon blood 
mostly. 

So that at this memorable show we have the Erica, 
Jilt, Queen and Pride blood entirely producing the 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. Ill 

winners, No better test could be stated of the potency 
of ''blood." 

The Live Stock Journal editorially remarked on this 
show : 

The exceptionally fine display of Polled Aberdeen-Angus 
cattle has been the subject of general comment during the 
show. This breed has made rapid strides during the past ten 
years, and no one who has seen the polled collection at Edin- 
burgh, this week, would dispute its claim to the possession of 
very great excellence. These cattle show no lack of size, and 
while most of them have been highly fed, their levelness of fleshy 
fineness of quality, and freshness in gait, are quite remarkable. 
The polled cow class is, in regard to average merit and numbers, 
one of the best classes of live stock we have ever seen in 
any British show-yard. The leet of ten or twelve which were 
drawn out by the judges, for the final tussle, formed an array of 
animal perfection such as we have rarely seen equalled. 

Mr. Geo. Hendry, of the Daily Free Press, Aberdeen, 
one of the few good live stock reporters in Britain, 
thus writes to an American journal : 

In Scotland, as elsewhere, we have the claims of one breed 
canvassed and pitted against those of another, and a slight 
spirit of jealousy existing among our breeders, so that all eyes 
were eagerly turned towards the Centenary Exhibition of the 
Highland Society, which it was felt would be a good test of the 
merits of our world renowned varieties of cattle. Briefly and 
frankly, then, none stood that test so well as the Polled Aber- 
deen-Angus, which made a surpassingly grand appearance in 
the show-yard, as rival breeders were forced to admit. Had 
this been the first time they were known to fame, their reputa- 
tion as the breed, par excellence, most calcidated to give the 
greatest return to the feeder, would have at once been made, 
but they have a well established character in this respect, which 
will be strengthened and extended by the event of last week. 
* * * The one hundred and fifty odd entries of Polled Aber- 
deens undoubtedly carried the palm in the cattle sections. How 
wonderfully well they carry their flesh all over their round, 
sleek bodies, and that, too, though many of them have been 
somewhat injudiciously forced for the show-yard ! How nicely 



112 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

set on their legs are they, and how clean made and small in the 
bone ! Beau ideal specimens, in short, of cattle that are famed 
throughout the world for their quality and wealth of flesh. 
Never, on any former occasion, has such a magnificent display 
been witnessed, for not only were the winners of great indivi- 
dual merit, but the quality was well sustained in the very end of 
the diff"erent classes. 



Part II. 

BIRMINGHAM AND SMITHFIELD IN 1 885. 

A Scottish correspondent of the Breeder s Gazette 
wrote, December 31, 1885: "Never before has it 
fallen to the lot of any breed of cattle to make such a 
marked sensation among all classes of breeders and 
feeders as it has fallen to the Aberdeen-Angus to do 
this year. Not only has the championship of the two 
great shows at Birmingham and London been awarded 
to one of the breed, but the general excellence of the 
exhibits has been universally admitted ; and it is not 
only in the classes for pure-bred cattle that the Aber- 
deen-Angus have made their mark, but in the class for 
cross-breds the blacks have had it all their own way. 
The judges at Smithfield, only one of whom, by the 
way, was a Scotsman, seemed unable to recognize any- 
thing but what was more or less impregnated with the 
prepotent blood of the ' black, but comely.' * * * 
Be it remembered that the word * polled ' as used here, 
may be taken as strictly applicable to the Aberdeen- 
Angus breed. At the great shows this year, as in 
former years, Galloways have been remarkable from 
their absence ; in fact, I trace Galloway blood in only 
one of those appearing in the prize list, viz., the second 
prize steer in the old cross-bred class, which is out of a 
Galloway cow." 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. II3 

" Delta," the special London cerrespondent of the 
Gazette, said of the Birmingham show : " The best 
butcher's animals at the exhibition, were the famous 
beef-breed — the Polled Aberdeen. These animals made 
a good show, and were animals of style and character." 
" Delta" made similar remarks on the Smithfield show. 

" Sigma," correspondent of the National Live Stock 
Journal, writes thus of the polls at the Birmingham 
show : " The chief honors of the show have fallen to 
the Aberdeen-Angus, this breed supplying the cham- 
pion, and having half the credit of producing the 
reserve, as well as a good many of the best animals 
among the first rate section of cross-breds. 

" One of the best classes in the show was that of 
Scotch Polled cows and heifers, only Aberdeen-Angus, 
however, putting in an appearance." 

Particularising Luxury, he proceeds : '' This beauti- 
ful specimen of the breed is perfect in symmetry, even 
in flesh, small in size, very true in character, and with 
fine bone. Mr. Stephenson, her breeder and owner, 
has now achieved the unparalleled feat of winning the 
Birmingham championship three years in succession. 
He is the county veterinarian, and is well known as a 
successful breeder and feeder. [He was formerly a hot 
Shorthorn fancier]. His accession to the ranks of 
polled cattle breeders is a great strength to that body, 
and Scotchmen need his aid at present, for they now 
greatly miss from among them an enterprising pioneer 
like the late Mr. McCombie, of Tillyfour." 

Of Smithfield, the same authority writes: "The 
Smithfield Fat Stock Show has resulted in a brilliant 
series of victories for the Aberdeen-Angus breed, and 
its champion Mr. Clement Stephenson, Newcastle-on- 
Tyne. Mr. Stephenson's heifer, Lux.ury, which carried 



4 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 




LUXURY.* 

off the blue ribbon at Birmingham, was soon singled 
out here as the most likely winner of the best prizes, 
and this expectation was fulfilled. '"^ '^ ^ Her most 
dangerous antagonist, too, was another Aberdeen- 
Angus heifer, exhibited in the same class. This was 
Sir William Gordon Cumming's two-year-and-nine- 
months-old heifer, got by the Queen bull Dustman, and 
from a dam by the Pride bull Black Watch, a very 
thick, plump emimal, and splendidly ripened. The 
class in which these two animals competed was the 
best in the hall. 



* Acknowledgment is here extended for the courtesy of the 
proprietors of the Breeder^ s Gazette, Chiciigo, 111., for })ermission 
to use the above excellently executed cut. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 11$ 

*' The strength of the Scotch Polled breeds — Gallo- 
ways being again ' conspicuous by their absence ' — was 
in the female classes. Than the half score Aberdeen- 
Angus cows and heifers, I may repeat, nothing more 
choice has ever been witnessed at Smithfield. 

" The cross-breds, another grand section, formed a 
striking testimony to the excellence of the Aberdeen- 
Angus and Shorthorn cross." 

The Free Press, Aberdeen, Scotland, alluding to Mr. 
Stephenson's victories for the last three years, at Bir- 
mingham, said : '' These victories of Mr. Stephenson 
have placed the polled Aberdeen-Angus breed on the 
highest pinnacle of fame as beef producers. We are 
sure no one — a Scotchman least of all — will grudge 
Mr. Stephenson the honors which he has won so 
worthily." 

Of the Smithfield show it said : " Scotch feeders 
and breeders are jubilant to-day because of the great 
achievements of the Polled Aberdeen- Angus cattle at 
the eighty-eighth annual show of the Smithfield Cattle 
Club. This breed was never seen to better advantage 
in London, or for that matter anywhere else, and the 
concluding victory of Mr. Stephenson's polled heifer 
Luxury over the best of all breeds was a cause of much 
rejoicing among the Scotchmen in the hall. None can 
deny that this year the Polled Aberdeens have been 
the very cream of the great London exhibition. There 
were at least a round dozen of black beauties that 
would have with the utmost ease put to rout a like 
number drawn from any other breed in the exhibition. 
The year 1885, ^t Smithfield, may truly be called the 
year of the Polled Aberdeens. The show has been a 
remarkable one in several ways. In the first place it 
is all round one of the best exhibitions probably that 



Il6 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

have ever taken place in London — its merit consisting 
in the general high character of the stock rather than 
in notable ' plums.' The average merit is much better, 
and that, after all, is the chief consideration at an 
exhibition of this kind. Last year's show was, from a 
utilitarian point of view, ranked high, and the present 
one might be placed even higher in that respect. A 
notable feature is the magnificent array of cattle that 
in crossing had been clearly indebted to the blood of 
polled stock for their outward moulding. 

'' There was no mistaking the significance of the keen 
interest with which the judging of the Polled Aberdeen 
or Angus cattle was watched. The competition, by 
the way, was open to Galloways, but not a single 
specimen of that breed was shown. There were 25 
entries in all, as against 20 in 1884, and 17 in 1883, and 
such a grand display never before graced any show- 
yard. If anything is calculated to revive the demand 
for polled cattle, it is the exceptional merit of those 
shown by Scotch and English exhibitors to-day. As 
formerly noticed, a new class has been added for young 
steers." 

It described the class of polled cows *' as not excelled 
by any in the show." And in fully describing Luxury, 
after all her journeyings, happily hit her off by saying 
she " looked as fresh as pauity 

The Banffshire Journal says of the London show : 
'• The class in which Luxury appeared was undoubtedly 
the best in the show, and the best of the breed that 
has ever been together." 

The North British Agriculturist, December 2, 1885, 
in its report of the Birmingham show, says : " The 
champion heifer is one ot the best-matured and neatest 
animals at her age it has ever been our privilege to see, 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. II7 

and presents a beautiful outline, fine bone, and attrac- 
tive gait. * "^ * It is worthy of remark that this 
is the third successive time in which Mr. Stephenson 
has carried the Birmingham championship with animals 
of the Polled Angus breed, and that he has thus proved 
himself one of the most successful breeders who have 
sought to vindicate the beefing properties of the 
favorite breed." 

In its report of the Smithfield show the same paper 
says : *' If there has been one section of the great 
Smithfield show, which is now being held in the Agri- 
cultural Hall, Islington, London, more remarkable for 
its recent development than another, it is undoubtedly 
that of Scotch polled cattle. Never, during the long 
and eventful history of the exhibition, have the favorite 
* black-skins * figured so prominently among the beef- 
making breeds of British cattle as on the present 
occasion. The Aberdeen-Angus breed not only bears 
the distinction of producing a worthy champion, but 
it may safely be regarded as the feature of the show. 
It was predicted by some vigilant breeders last year 
that the polled breed would this year be further to the 
front than ever, and their predictions have not been 
falsified. On the other hand, the most hopeful antici- 
pations have been fully realized, and the highest ambi- 
tion of the promoters of the breed fully gratified. Be 
this as it may, it has been observed by visitors to the 
exhibition at Smithfield, for some time past, that, 
year by year, ' black-skins * have been becoming more 
numerous. For beef ^"^ black is the domi?tant color ; and 
even Shorthorn fanciers^ on Monday, in giving the 
awards, evinced a predilection for the sable coat. 



*See pp. 18, 19. 



Il8 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

" The exhibition all over is one of the best ever held 
at Islington. Indeed, some people would put it down 
as the finest show of the kind ever seen in the Agricul- 
tural Hall. As regards size, the exhibition exceeds 
that of last year by eight entries, and is considered 
larger than the great majority of its predecessors. It 
comprises a total entry of 5^3, of which there are 293 
cattle, 190 sheep, and 60 pigs. Out of this number 
there are only some twenty-four absentees, and many 
of the classes, notably those of Scotch cattle, are 
bigger than they have been in recent years. Mr. 
Stephenson is again the champion with the handsome 
little heifer with which he accomplished the usual feat 
at Birmingham last week — where he won the champion- 
ship for the third successive time with representatives 
of the polled breed. His greatest success in the feeding 
of polled cattle is something to be proud of." 

It describes as follows the chief features of the show : 



"ABERDEEN-ANGUS CATTLE. 

'' No apology need be offered for departing from the 
order of the catalogue, and referring in the first place 
to the Aberdeen-Angus cattle. We need scarcely 
repeat that they form the feature of the show, and that 
they are more numerously represented than on any 
former occasion, 

" Polled heifers formed a magnificent class of nine. 
The contest here was keen and protracted, and, as was 
to be expected, resulted in a victory for Mr. Stephen- 
son's famous Luxury. Some of the judges seemed tp 
like the Altyre heifer fully better than Luxury, but 
good though the former is, the little champion could 
not be got over. The Altyre heifers, both of which 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. I I9 , 

are very nicely brought out, are fully as attractive at 
first sight as Luxury, but the heavier of the two, 
which weighs fully 15* cwt., is nearly li cwt. lighter 
than Mr. Stephenson's heifer. The second heifer, sired 
by Dustman, is a good, massive animal, but not so 
evenly balanced as Luxury, while she is more defective 
than her successful rival in the shoulders. She was 
second at the Aberdeen Highland Show last summer. 
The Haughton heifer, which was second at Birming- 
ham, occupies the third place, and is followed by 
another daughter of Dustman from Altyre. Favourite 
of Altyre, is well covered, but she is a trifle soft in 
her flesh. She was second yearling at the Edinburgh 
Centenary Show of the Highland and Agricultural 
Society." 

It is conceded by the English papers that the Polled 
Aberdeen exhibits constituted the feature of the shows, 
and the premium lists prove that they bore off the 
lion's share of the honors. 

The Field, London, in describing the London show, 
says: "The strength of the Scotch cattle, and the 
most meritorious element of the bovine exhibition was 
found in the polled cattle, which was one of the 
largest and best collections ever seen in London." 

The Live Stock Journal is the leading national jour- 
nal of its class and a model in every way. In its report 
it holds the balance evenly. After adverting to the 
*' cry" that has been, since 1880, for early maturity, it 
remarks that, with the single exception of the Norfolk 
class, all the breed cups were won by animals under 
three ; and after giving full justice to Mr. Stephenson 
as having done the never-dreamed-of-as-possible feat of 
winning, against all Britain, the Elkington Challenge 
Plate three times in succession, and with Polled Aber- 



I20 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

deens, says : '' The Polled Aberdeens have accom- 
plished a feat unparalleled in fat stock shows." Of the 
Smithfi<eld achievements words failed this journal — 
contenting itself by saying : '' The Aberdeens have 
surpassed even all their former appearances." 

** The victory on this occasion," says the Fr^e Press, 
'' the only time that the championship at Birmingham 
and Smithfield has been won in the same year and by 
the same animal," is further enhanced, as the Live Stock 
Journal rightly points out, by *' the animal being also 
bred by the exhibitor," thus winning, at Birmingham, 
the extra Prince of Wales' (or president's) cup, and, at 
London, the very coveted great gold medal of the 
show ; besides the class prizes — cups for best of breed, 
best of sex, best of all — at all these places. 

The Agricultural Gazette contains a report very 
reminiscent of the old hands. It says : " That the 
breeders of this excellent variety for beef are deter- 
mined not to lose any opportunity of pushing their 
cattle may be seen by the names of the herds which 
are represented. One was bred at Ballindalloch Castle ; 
others came from hardly less noted breeders ; and it is 
long since Warlaby or Wetherby furnished a specimen 
ox for graziers to pattern against other varieties. There 
can be no doubt that it has been the wisest policy 
which has made first Sir W. Gordon-Cumming, and 
later on Mr. C. Stephenson and Mr. G. Wilken, devote 
to the show-yard heifers and steers which breeders, 
more greedy of immediate returns, would have sent to 
the summer shows if they exhibited them at all. Pro- 
bably, no one breed had such high types of its best 
tribes, ' fed for slaughter,' as had the black polls. 
And, as a consequence, by common consent, this is 
*a black year' at Islington. The pure bred polls 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 121 

(and those produced by using polled bulls to Shorthorn 
cows) being very prominent." 

Next to her stood, in her class, no less an antagonist 
than Sir W. C. Gordon-Cumming and Robt. Walker's 
representative. This heifer was by the Queen Duchess 
bull Dustman (1667), the sire also of the Altyre second 
prize ox in the young steer class. Some nice points 
come into consideration now. By the reports Altyre's 
star would, on this occasion, seem not to have been on 
the ascendant. The reports even indicate that there 
were onlookers who would have put him firs;t in both 
classes of heifers and young steers — even before 
Luxury ! Certainly their exhibits were not much 
behind their celebrated two of 1881, and the Agricul- 
tural Gazette says : " It is right to say that, standing 
by Sir W. C. Gordon-Cumming's pair, she (Luxury) by 
no means made these look rough. They pressed her 
hard. Both of these heifers were bred by the exhibitor, 
and were by his Dustman (1667), a bull whose progeny 
have remarkable hair — as, see the second prize steer 
between two and three years old. This steer had a 
half brother which was second in the younger class (to 
George Wilken), and even of greater promise. -^ -^ ^ 
Although Mr. C. Stephenson's herd won the great 
prize his herd certainly has not surpassed Sir W. C. 
Gordon-Cumming's, all of whose entries are of one 
pattern, and that a very fine pattern. The comparison 
of the entries in those classes show that this variety is 
becoming more and more uniform every year." These 
remarks are but just to the excellence of the Altyre 
cattle and no disparagement to Mr. Stephenson's. It 
is certain that if Luxury had not been present or had 
been beaten by Altyre, that Altyre would have gained 
the championship. So that here we have, as it were, 



122 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

a waste of one champion altogether. And further to 
quote a correspondent of the Live-Stock Journal (Lon- 
don): '' The question arises whether the second-prize 
polled heifer beaten in her class by the champion was 
not the second-best beast in the show. Any way she 
should have had a chance, and should have been placed 
in competition for it." This is one of the certain dis- 
advantages of the working of the London system. 

Speaking of the class of yearling Angus steers the 
same paper says: *' Indeed the whole seven, shown in 
this class, average 12 cwt. 2 qrs. 2 lbs., though not 
exceeding 20 months in age. This must be held an 
enormous advance in early maturity with what south- 
erners call ' Scots.' " And of the weights of the class of 
cows : "■ These weights would have been incredible to a 
Norfolk grazier of this variety forty years ago." 

How often have we been present in that great crowd 
of Englishmen during the intense excitement of the 
awarding the championships ! '' The last great award, 
the championship, has yet to be decided. Excitement 
runs high. Royalty joins in the pean of admiration. 
A ringing cheer echoes through the great hall when at 
last the 'blue ribbon' is placed on Mr. Clement Ste- 
phenson's Aberdeen-Angus heifer. Luxury, proclaiming 
her ' champion,' the bucolic Queen of the day." The 
crowd breaks through the charmed line kept by the 
now overcome policemen erstwhile of supremest dig- 
nity. The champion is daintily handled from poll to 
tail. Even Royal gloved fingers deign to come in con- 
tact with the model form. Congratulations pour over 
the lucky owner from prince, peer, people. Hats are 
thrown up, cheers break through the magic silence, 
the northern Doric is loosened over assembled Cockney- 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 23 

dom. Once more the blue is ''over the Border," once 
more the victory is to Heather bloom. 

The BanffsJiire Journal reporter writes thus as to the 
interest taken in Luxury : '' It is curious to notice 
how popular attention centres upon the leading prize 
winners. Mr. Clement Stephenson's champion Polled 
Aberdeen-Angus heifer. Luxury, was continuously sur- 
rounded by a crowd, and would never have been allowed 
to rept had the populace had their own way. Happily, 
however, Mr. Hine, the secretary of the Club, and the. 
Stewards, have a proper appreciation of the treatment 
of cattle. Luxury was penned up along with a neigh- 
bor, and when the steward was absent, a policeman 
protected her from the hands of the curious. She is 
of an admirable sort, having gone on feeding during 
all the show time, so that her fine appearance is fully 
maintained, and will be reflected in the photographs of 
her that have been secured. Three different photo- 
graphs were taken of Luxury, and I learned that one 
of them was intended for the Polled Cattle Society. 
It was understood that at one time Mr. Stephenson 
intended to take Luxury back to his farm, near New- 
castle-on-Tyne, and try the experiment of reducing 
her condition and breeding from her. No sooner, 
however, had the champion prize been awarded than 
Mr. Stephenson was besieged with offers for the heifer 
and she was sold at, we believe, the net price of £\^o, 
to Mr. Grant, butcher, King William's street. Charing 
Cross, London. Mr. Grant is, in the ordinary course 
of his business, an extensive buyer of Aberdeenshire 
beef, and knows full well the public appreciation of the 
first-class article." 

Luxury won ^364 in prizes and was sold for £\^o 
for beef at the rate of 2s. 6d. per lb. The following are 



124 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD, 

particulars of her test at the block. The Banffshire 
Journal of January 5, 1886, makes the following 
remarks : *' In reporting on the recent Smithfield Club 
Fat Cattle Show, we direct attention to the decreasing 
number of aged stock and the growing favor for fat 
cattle at two years old and under. The substitution of 
a dead meat for a live cattle trade among Metropolitan 
butchers accounts to some extent for the increasing 
demand for prime young cattle. When an ox above 
three years old is cut up, there is far greater propor- 
tions of low priced meat than in a two year old. The 
inferior parts do not sell so rapidly nor at relatively 
such high prices as was con. mon a year or two ago; 
while the taste for the roasting parts has increased and 
its value is well maintained. The great characteristic 
of the Polled Aberdeen-Angus heifer Luxury, with 
which Mr. Clement Stephenson won the champion 
prizes both at Smithfield and Birmingham, was the 
apparent large proportion of the finer pieces of meat 
that she carried and the small appearance of bone and 
offal. Luxury was slaughtered and made into meat 
for Christmas. The carcass was inspected by the rep- 
resentative of the Mark La?ic Express who has been a 
consistent and able exponent of the view of a 'killing 
test ' of fat cattle. Mr. Grant, butcher, Charing Cross, 
London, had Luxury killed. Her age was 974 days, 
her live weight 1,724 lbs., and her average gain in weight 
per day for that period was equal to 1.77 lbs. The 
carcass when quartered appeared to have no coarse 
meat at all ; there was no more scrag than in a sheep, 
the neck being a little thin flap coming out of the 
immensely thick shoulders, whilst the shins were exceed- 
ingly small. The smallness of the bone in proportion 
to the thickness and weight of the carcass was some- 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 12^ 

thing very much out of the common way, and the 
proportions of the animal could be seen to very much 
more advantage when the carcass was hung up than 
when it was alive. The salting meat, bottom of ribs 
and flank, was very fat, but all along the back, from 
head to tail, there was a deep covering of lean meat of 
the finest quality marbled to perfection and not beyond 
it, with a shallower covering of outside fat than many 
of the show animals. Taking the fat in proportion to 
the lean, the quality of the lean meat, the large pro- 
portion of meat to bone, and the very large proportion 
of prime pieces to the inferior cuts, this animal would 
have come first had there ueen a dressed carcass compe- 
tition. In America, this year, the 'best killing' animal 
of any breed was, as we recently noticed, a Polled Aber- 
deen Angus two-year-old ox. Among show animals the 
breed may therefore be held to have taken the first 
place in regard to early maturity. The fact that the 
Aberdeen-Angus cattle stand at the head of the Met- 
ropolitan live cattle market may be taken as an indica- 
tion that the qualities appearing in the specially fed 
animals are characteristic of the whole breed. The 
movement for a slaughter test in connection with our 
leading fat stock shows is very likely to be fully dis- 
cussed before our next Christmas exhibition." 

The London Live Stock Journal in an editorial para- 
graph says: *' In our notice of Mr. Clement Stephen- 
son's Aberdeen-Angus heifer, Luxury, the champion at 
the Birmingham and London fat-stock shows, it was 
remarked that we never remembered having seen a 
greater weight of choice meat carried in such a small 
compass. The appearance of the carcass and the 
weight amply bear out this opinion. Her dressed car- 
cass weighed no less than 164 stone, 6 lbs., and her's 



126 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

was ' the most perfect body of beef that was ever seen, 
and not at all fat.' The live weight of Luxury was 15 
cwt. I qr. 6 lbs., or 1,714 lbs., and her dressed weight 
was 1,318 lbs., showing as much as 76 per cent, of dead 
meat to live weight. It may be doubted, if this has 
ever been beaten by any well-authenticated record." 

The above statement was received with incredulity 
in America, but the following from the editorial col- 
umns of the same journal for March 12, 1886, puts 
the matter at rest : " The statement made in these 
columns as to the carcase weight of Mr. Clement Ste- 
phenson's champion Polled heifer Luxury has not 
unnaturally excited a great deal of attention, and it 
has been suggested that the very high percentage of ']6 
may have been due to miscalculation. Mr. Grant, 5 
King William street, Strand, London, W. C, the pur- 
chaser of Luxury, and upon whose figures our state- 
ment was based, has written the following letter to Mr. 
Stephenson, which will remove any doubt as to the 
authenticity of the return : — ' In reply to your letter, I 
beg to say the weight sent you previously of Luxury 
was quite correct. I can quite understand any one 
being deceived in the weight, for I must say she was 
the most solid body of flesh that ever I saw or bought. 
The weight given you was when all fat was removed.' " 

Luxury (;*783) belongs to a Portlethen family of 
" ancient lineage " originating from the old Ardovie 
foundation of Lively (256) by Earl o' Buchan (57). For 
a complete history of " How Luxury was bred " see 
Xhe Breeder s Gazette, February 18, 1886. 



27 



CHAPTER XII. 



APOTHEOSIS— Continued. 



Part III. 



THE ABERDEEN CROSSES. 



There is one great series of facts not yet noticed 
that are even more calculated to revive and enhance 
the interest in the Polls. We of course allude to the 
prepotence of the Aberdeen sire as displayed by the 
record of the classes for crosses at the English exhibit- 
ion. Breeders in England have been gradually but 
surely educated in this matter, till what is the result 
to-day? the supremacy of the Aberdeen in this, as in 
all other points, proving the Aberdeen sire is prepo- 
tence, superior always to the Short-horn, Hereford, 
and all the other breeds. The Free Press remarks 
again of the class at Birmingham : '' Than the cross- 
breeds, there was no better feature of the show." At 
Smithfield : Again, (same report) : '' A notable feature 
is the magnificant array of cattle that in crossing have 
been clearly indebted to the Polled blood for their 
outward moulding." 



128 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

" Of cross-bred cattle there was an extra fine displa»y, 
the entries showing a large increase on former year, 
and the average quality all around was of a high char- 
acter. Reference has already been made to the impor- 
tant part the polled breed has played in the moulding 
of many of the crosses which have been exhibited in 
England this year, and one result of the present cam. 
paign will probably be a large increase in the number 
of polled cross-bred cattle in England. -sf * * 
The animals in running for the Cross cup were all typi- 
cal polls, a fact to which attention was prominently 
called in the hail. ^ ^ ^ js^ great feature 
of the exhibition, it is understood, will be the grand 
display of Scotch-Polled pure-bred and cross-bred cattle. 
The Polled Aberdeehshire which have come into Eng- 
land are having a great influence upon the southern 
breeds, and wherever they come into contact, the north- 
ern poll conquers, and leaves his own type indissolubly 
fixed upon the animals which inherit his blood. If the 
process goes on with the same speed as it has begun, 
one will soon find all the cross-bred cattle at these 
exhibitions Black and Polled." 

The North British Agriculturist of December 9th, 
1885, writing of the same show, says: " In this depart- 
ment many fine animals are shown. There is a pre- 
ponderance of ' black-skins,' and almost all the princi- 
pal winners are closely related to the Aberdeen-Angus 
breed. Strange to say, the judges, though of Short- 
horn leanings, turned aside with wonderful dispatch 
all the roan animals, and wrought strongly for the 
interests of the Polled breed." 

The Mark Lane Express contains some rather strik- 
ing comments suggested by the cattle exhibited at Bir- 
mingham. Among other things it says : *' The stand- 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 29 

ard of the show, so far as fat stock are concerned, was, 
on the whole, quite equal to that of former exhibitions, 
yet it differed very essentially from many recent shows 
in one very important and significant feature, which 
was this — the weakness of the classes for pure breeds 
was more than counterbalenced by the extraordinary 
strength and merit of the cross-bred section, which was, 
roughly speaking, fully one-half Scotch blood. It must 
have been patent to every careful observer that the 
Scotch breeds and the Scotch crosses, the latter more 
especially, made the Birmingham show of 1885 what it 
was Of course, the crosses could not be produced 
were it not for the maintenance of pure-bred herds of 
the several breeds, but it is plain that the day has gone 
by for fancy values to be attached to long pedigrees. 
The want of the day is good animals of good breeding, 
eligible for entry in herd books with the oldest fancy 
strains, which may be depended upon to get useful 
stock for hard-working tenant farmers* use." 

The Field speaking of crosses at Smithfield says: 
*' Cross-bred cattle were a marked feature of the show, 
both numerically and for individul merit which was 
great — the Scotch Polled Aberdeen-Angus breed hav- 
ing a marked influence on form and color. It may be 
taken that with few exceptions, notably Mr. Wortley's 
champion steer of 1884 (Hereford-Short -horn) a cross 
between Polled Scot Aberdeen-Angus and Short-horn 
in some degree or other, is the most successful, both as 
to form, quality and early maturity." 

The other journals have similar remarks, the Live- 
stock Journal saying it was remarkable that in "nearly 
every case the judges preferred for the chief prizes, 
animals of the Polled type." 



130 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

CHARACTER OF THE PRIZE WINNERS IN THE CROSS- 
BRED CLASSES. 

The following summary has been prepared from the 
details given in the above-noted journals and will show 
the composition and character of the classes. It may 
be useful and interesting : 

AT BIRMINGHAM — THREE-YEAR-OLD CLASS. 

1st. Sire Short-horn Grand Duke of Oxford 32953 ; 
dam Polled Aberdeen Queen Mary of Glamis 3312. 
This animal also took the Cross cup at this show, but 
got no further, though he had been champion at Nor- 
wich over Mr. C. Stephenson's Luxury, where the 
reporters declared their preference for the latter. This 
ox, put back at this show, was, as we shall see, put 
back still further at Smithfield. Mr. Wm. Watson 
makes the following comparison : *' Mr. Loder's ox 
weighed 2,624 lbs., a younger steer than Chicago's 
champion Regulus, yet weighing 334 lbs. more, showing 
the decided superiority of the Aberdeen-Angus and 
Short-horn cross to that of the Hereford and Short- 
horn." Character — Black Polled. 

2d. Sire Polled Aberdeen ; dam Short-horn ; color 
blue-gray. Highly commended (two) — details not 
sufficient. 

TWO-YEAR-OLD CLASS. 

1st. Sire Polled Aberdeen ; dam Short-horn ; Black 
Polled. 

2d. Sire and dam not stated in reports ; red-and- 
white. 

3d. Sire and dam not stated in reports ; roan. 
Highly commended, blue-gray ; highly commended, 
roan. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 131 

YEARLING CLASS. 

1st. Sire Aberdeen Proud Knight 1922; dam Short- 
horn ; Black Polled. 
2d. No details. 
3d. Blue Poll. 
4th. Polled and roan. 

COWS AND HEIFERS. 

1st. Sire Polled Aberdeen ; dam first-cross (Aber- 
deen-Short-horn) Black Polled. , The Live-Stock Jour- 
nal said of this heifer while at Birmingham : " It may 
be doubted if any animal in the &how exhibited a truer 
outHne or better shape, and if she had come out a lit- 
more firmly in flesh she would have been very difficult 
to set aside for the championship." At Smithfield she 
improved on her position and beat the Short-horn-Aber- 
deen in a canter for the Cross Cup at the London Show. 

A fine portrait of this heifer " Flora McDonald," 
appeared, April 2, in the London Live-Stock JournaL 

2d. Sire Short-horn (Knickerbocker, the late Jas. 
Bruces' Burnside, prize bull) ; dam Polled roan. 

3d, Short-horn-Galloway. 

SPECIAL BUTCHERS' PRIZE. 

1st. Sire Aberdeen (Paris 2d); dam Short-horn or 
pure Polled — uncertain ; Black Poll ; age, three years 
and ten months. 

2d. Pure Short-horn ; age, four years. 

AT SMITHFIELD— YEARLING CLASS (STEERS). 

1st. Same as first at Birmingham in same class; 
"carried four firsts this year." 
2d. The fourth at Birmingham. 



132 THE BREED THAT JBEATS THE RECORD. 

3d. Sire Short-horn bull ; dam Polled blue-roan. 
The third Birmingham winner was *' left out in the 
cold." 

TWO-YEAR-OLD CLASS (STEERS). 

1st. Sire Aberdeen Poll; dam Short-horn; blue 
Polled. First also at Birmingham. 

2d. Sire Short-horn ; dam Polled ; Black Poll. 

3d. Sire Polled Aberdeen; dam Short-horn- Here- 
ford ; Black Poll. 

(The Birmingham second was not ticketed here.) 

THREE-YEAR-OLD CLASS (STEERS). 

1st. The Birmingham first, which was here reserved 
for best ox (a white Short-horn getting cup for best 
ox). The Live-Stock Journal says : '' We are inclined 
to think the cross-bred steer should have obtained the 
coveted position. By the large majority of on-lookers 
his success was expected, and the contest was certainly 
very close." In another part of the report the paper 
says: **We think he was clearly entitled to it." 

2d. Sire Short-horn ; dam (?) 

3d. Sire Short-horn ; dam (?) 

HEIFER CLASS. 

1st. The first-prize animal at Birmingham. Bear- 
ing in mind the remarks on the first-prize old steer, 
above, '' which should have been best ox," this heifer 
must have been a remarkable one to have beaten that 
ox for the Cross Cup, which she did. Again the Live- 
stock Journal says : '' But for certain trifling defects 
she would have been an exceedingly stiff opponent to 
Mr. Stephenson's champion heifer." 

2d. Sire Short-horn ; dam Polled ; Black Poll. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 33 

3d. Sire Short-horn ; dam cross-bred Short-horn- 
Polled ; red-and-white. 

The Mark Lane Express, December 14, 1885, states: 
"The heaviest beast in the show was Mr. Wm. Tasker's 
ox, sire Aberdeen, dam by a Short-horn, bull from an 
Ayrshire and Short-horn cross cow ; age 3 years, 8 
months i week; weight 21 cwt. 3 qrs. 20 lbs." 

ANOTHER LIST. 

The following is a detailed list of principal prizes 
won by Aberdeen-Angus or their crosses. 

NORWICH. 

Cross bred. — Champion prize of 20 gs. for best beast : 
R. Loder, Short-horn sire, Aberdeen-Angus dam. Pres- 
ident's prize, ;^20, to the same beast. Champion prize 
of;^i5 for the best cow or heifer in the yard: C. 
Stephenson, Aberdeen-Angus, pure-bred. 

Steers of any breed, including cross or mixed breed, 
not exceding two years old : First prize, R. Wright 
(Lincoln), cross-bred, sire Polled Angus, dam Short- 
horn, bred by W. Curry (Hurworth), second prize, C. 
Stephenson, pure-bred Polled Aberdeen-Angus. 

Steers of pure bred other than Short-horn or Red 
Polled, not less than two years and nor exceeding three 
years old : reserved and highly commended, W. B. 
Greenfield (Bedfordshire), Polled Aberdeen-Angus ; 
commended, C. Stephenson (Newcastle), Polled Aber- 
deen-Angus. 

Ox or steer of any pure breed other than Short-horn 
or Red Polled, not less than three and not exceeding 
four years old : first prize, G. Townshend (Soham), 
Polled Aberdeen-Angus, bred by J. W. Barclay, M. P., 
(Aberdeenshire). 



134 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD 

Cross or mixed-bred steer, not less than two and not 
exceeding three years old: First prize, R. Loder, sire 
Short-horn, dam Polled Aberdeen-Angus ; second prize, 
T. Freshney ( Lincolnshire ), sire Polled Aberdeen- 
Angus ; dam Short-horn ; reserve, Mrs. Meynell Ingram 
(Leeds), sire Short-horn, dam Polled Scot. 

Cows of any breed other than Short-horn or Red 
Polled : First prize, C. Stephenson (Newcastle), pure- 
bred Aberdeen-Angus; second prize, W. B. Greenfield, 
sire Aberdeen-Angus, dam a cross-bred red cow. 

BIRMINGHAM. 

Elkington challenge cup, value i^io5, for the best 
animal bred and fed by the exhibitor : C. Stephenson, 
Aberdeen-Angus heifer ; also President's prize and 
Scotch cup. 

Cross-bred animals, special prize of ^30: First prize, 
for oxen exceeding four years old, R. Loder, Short- 
horn sire, Aberdeen-Angus, dam ; second prize, Messrs. 
T. and J. B. Freshney, sire Aberdeen-Angus, dam 
Short-horn. 

Steers exceeding two and under three years old. — 
First prize, ;^20, R. Wright, sire Aberdeen-Angus, dam 
Short-horn. 

Cross-bred cows or heifers — First prize, £1$, W. B. 
Greenfield, Aberdeen- Angus sire, dam cross-bred. 

Butcher's prize of £i<, — J. Cridlan, Aberdeen-Angus. 

SMITHFIELD CLUB— LONDON. 

Champion prize of ;^I05 — C. Stephenson, pure-bred 
Aberdeen-Angus heifer. Gold medal. Silver cup, value 
;^50, for best heifer or cow, Scotch cup — C. Stephenson, 
pure-bred Aberdeen-Angus heifer. 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 35 

Cross-bred steers, not exceeding two years — First 
prize, R. Wright, sire Aberdeen-Angus, dam Short- 
horn ; third prize, O. C. Wallis, sire Short-horn, dam 
Aberdeen- Angus. 

Cross-bred steers, above two years. — Second prize, 
O. C. Wallis, sire Short-horn, dam Aberdeen-Angus ; 
third prize, C. Stephenson, sire Aberdeen-Angus, dam 
Short-horn. 

Cross-bred steers, above three years — First prize, R. 
Loder, sire Short-horn, dam Aberdeen-Angus ; third 
prize, W. Tasker, sire Aberdeen-Angus, dam by Short- 
horn. 

Cross-bred heifers, not exceeding four years old — 
First prize, W. B. Greenfield, sire Aberdeen-Angus, 
dam first cross of Short-horn ; second prize, J. Stephen, 
sire Short-horn, dam Aberdeen-Angus. 

In addition to the above shows, the Aberdeen-Angus 
cross, and also the pure-bred, have figured largely in 
the prize lists at York, Leeds, Oakham, and other fat 
cattle shows. 

THE RECORD IS OF *' ABERDEEN-ANGUS " ONLY. 

The above splendidly brilliant record for 1885 of the 
Scotch Polled was entirely made by the Aberdeen- 
Angus. This has been the case as long as we remem- 
ber ; Galloways being always absent. 

The Agricultural Gazette, (London), December 13, 
1880, reporting on the "Scotch Polled Breeds" at Smith- 
field Fat Stock Show, said : '' Here the Galloway made 
no fight — the prizes all went to the Angus type." And 
the Daily Free Press, December 13, 1885, has the usual 
stereotyped phrase : " Though the class was open tg 
Galloways, none put in an appearance," 



136 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

We may here, therefore, allude to the " difference" 
between the Aberdeen-Angus and the Galloway so 
often asked. Mr. Gordon, Chief Inspector of Live 
Stock for Queensland, writing in the Qiieenslander, 1883, 
a very high Scotch authority, says : 

'* Attempts have, on many occasions, been made to 
identify the Aberdeen-Angus with the Galloway. It 
it unnecessary here to traverse the ground so often 
traveled, to show that the two breeds have little in 
common beyond the color and the absence of horns. 
Sufifice it to say that nothing in the history of either 
has been found to connect the two breeds. Mr. E. B. 
Woodhouse — who is a very careful observer in all mat- 
ters connected with cattle — in his report on the late 
Royal Show in England, published in the Qiieenslander, 
notes the marked difference in the outward appearance 
of the two breeds. The sleek skin and elastic touch 
of the Aberdeen cattle is in the marked contrast to the 
shaggy coat, thicker hide, and curly neck of the Gal- 
loway. In the hind quarters the difference is also 
most marked, the Galloways being wanting in that full 
development which is characteristic of the improved 
Aberdeen cattle." Besides these, the "conspicuousness 
of the absence" of the Galloway from the natural and 
standard '' platforms " of demonstration — Birmingham, 
Smithfield and other English Fat Stock shows, and 
Islington (London,) Fat cattle market. — -is the chief 
and most signifficant '' difference." 



137 



Part IV. 

THE LONDON CHRISTMAS MARKET, 1 885. 

The following is from the report of the National Live 
Stock Jottrnal: "Of even greater pecuniary impor- 
tance to the British farmer than the shows at Birming- 
ham and Islington, is the annual Christmas market of 
the metropolis. Here are to be found the very best 
commercial cattle exhibited during the year. The 
London market is always the choicest, and at Christ- 
mas time the selections are intended to supply the 
dinner tables of the most exacting judges of good beef. 
This year the market loses none of its high character. 
The quality taken all around has been extremely satis- 
factory. I do not think that the number of first-rate 
animals were so large as on former occasions, but from 
end to end the lots have rarely been better. Of course 
among the 7,400 cattle shown,'there was a considerable 
' tail ' of really poor specimens, quite unfit for the 
trade, but about two-thirds of the muster were nearly 
all that could be desired. The preference of the Lon- 
don butchers is still very decidedly in favor of the 
black polls — and it is desirable to explain that by that 
term is meant the Aberdeen-Angus and their crosses, 
for the Galloways were not represented. Customers 
would not in the early morning, when the best trade 



138 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

was done, look at colored-horned animals so long as 
good hornless blacks were to be had. This partiality- 
was never more strongly manifested. Farmers who 
had mixed lots soon got their polls clearad out, while 
they had to wait until the day was well advanced 
before they received any offers for bigger animals of 
varied shades. The polls have certainly acquired a 
most enviable reputation at the finest market in Eng- 
land, and it would be criminal folly if the breeders ever 
allowed it to sink. There is not much danger of their 
doing so, for they have the substantial inducement of 
immediate monitary reward to persevere in their efforts 
to keep their favorites in the front rank. 

The supply was much too large for the demand. The 
Londoner is suffering from severe business depression, 
and is unable to purchase the choice joints that he 
likes to indulge in at Christmas time. Compared with 
last year, there was an increase of nearly 2,500 cattle on 
offer. Of that number fully 1,000 came from the north- 
eastern counties of Scotland, the total supply from 
that country being 2,580. The top price for nicely 
finished cattle of about 7 cwt. to 8 cwt. was 5s. 8d. per 
stone of 8 lbs., but many good specimens made no 
more than 5s. 4.6. per stone, while heavier weights did 
not fetch more than 4s. lod. to 5s. 2d. The market 
has been a great disappointment to feeders. Last year 
an unexpectedly brisk business was experienced, and 
in the hope that a similar surprise was in store on this 
occasion, an exceptionally large number of beasts were 
retained. Business was very slow, and a clearance 
could not be effected. Among the animals shown I 
noticed two famous polled bulls — Prince of the Realm, 
a frequent winner at the national shows, and Wedg- 
wood, for some time in Mr. Auld's herd in Aberdeen^ 



TrtE tiREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. Ij^ 

shire, an exceedingly well-bred sire. Both these bulls 
were soon disposed of. 

Apart from the formidable Scotch contingent there 
were a few very fine Herefords ; there were also some 
creditable Devons, and a few heavy Welsh, The Short- 
horns were also a very fine muster of large, well-formed 
cattle, and they, of course, contributed a good share in 
the production of the splendid crosses which formed, 
next to the Aberdeen-Angus, the main feature of the 
display. 

The trade was the worst that has been experienced 
for sixteen years, last year's top price having been 6s. 
2d. per stone, while in the two preceding years the 
highest quotation was 6s. 4d. Altogether the market 
has heen greviously disappointing in everything, except 
the quaHty of the stock exhibited." 

This market is assuredly the very best market in the 
world for the choicest, primest and ripest cattle that 
the world can produce. It is the place where 
every breeder and feeder of whatever breed, who 
believes he handles that class of stock capable of 
standing a crucial test in respect to choiceness, ripeness, 
primeness and highest quality, has in his view, from 
the very beginning, to devote these animals com- 
ing up to such necessary perfection. We hear of 
" Polled Scots," " Prime Scots," and we hear of the 
''Aberdeen Polls" and their crosses, as we might neces- 
sarily expect, in terms of the highest praise in all the 
above respects. But we never hear of any other Scotch 
Poll in such laudatory terms at all. Not being able to 
stand the test they are not forwarded, being disposed 
of at the '' side" markets. Nowhere else as in London, 
as the world well knows, is the very best beef in 
demand and required ; and nowhere but there can the 



i40 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

best SO invaribly find its best market. "It should be par- 
ticularly remarked that when an English writer speaks 
of Polled Scots he means the Aberdeen-Angus which 
alone he is accustomed to see at London and Birming- 
ham, for a Galloway is a rara avis there. This should 
be made plain once for all to breeders on this side. 
Take up any of the British journals and we find that 
when they write on Polled Scots or Prime Polled Scots 
or Prime Scots they invariably and pointedly mean 
'Aberdeen.' In London, at Smithfield shows and at 
the Islington Great Market we hear of nothing but prime 
Aberdeenshire as descriptive of those Prime Scots and 
Prime Polled Scots. It is Aberdeens Polls that are the 
Prime Scots or Prime Polled Scots. In every well 
informed quarter this is well understood, any other 
allegation is a perversion of fact and absolutely 
devoid of the basis of substantiability." So writes a 
correspondent in the Kansas City Live Stock Record. 
Another in the Breeder s Gazette-. *T would here con- 
firm what a Scottish correspondent says about the 
identity of the Aberdeen-Angus with 'Polled Scots' 
and ' Prime Scots ' in England. Take up the Agri- 
cultural Gazette^ Live Stock Journal, Field, etc., and 
you will see these terms used to indicate the Aberdeens 
and no other. All the great achievement of the Aber- 
deens in France and England are in all the newspapers 
and heralded as won by the ' Polled Scots.' We 
must therefore be particular about that. The 
Live-Stock Journal — to which we have to resort for 
most of our live-stock information — now annually gives 
prominence to a capital report of the London Christmas 
market. Its report for the year (1885) says: 'As 
regards quality, the average meat was never higher. 
As in former years the Scotch cattle were decidedly 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 141 

the best. A large proportion of them were black 
polled, either pure-bred Aberdeen-Angus or crosses 
between that breed and the Short-horn the character of 
the polled predominating." 

This is the Breeder s Gazette report : " The Scotch 
beeves were excellent in character and quality, and 
gave a maximum amount of meat on very little bone. 
Indeed, the lot were very even and well developed ; and 
showed more or less of the polled characteristics, al- 
though some were the result of a cross between the polled 
Aberdeen and Short-horn, or vice versa. The Herefords 
and Short-horns also showed up well, but the white- 
faces predominated over the ' red, white and roan.' 
While the Devons and Welsh runts may be next taken 
in the scale of good quality. 

*' The home-bred cattle from Norwich and Suffolk 
were Red Polls of prime value, and the Short-horns 
from various districts were not without merit, but at the 
great Islington market the Black Poll, West Highlander, 
and Hereford have pride of place in the estimation of 
butchers and their customers." 

And that of the Kansas City Live Stock Record'. 
" The principal breed was the Polled Aberdeens with a 
fair sprinkling of West Highlanders. These obtained 
the top price of the market, namdly, $1.36 per 8 lbs.'' 

Same paper, March 25, 1886, on same market: 
'' The best Scotch cattle such as the Aberdeen Polls." 

The Mark Lane Express^ Decebmer 14, 1885, reports ; 
" In point of quality and condition to-day's display 
of stock may be looked upon as distinctly satisfactory, 
and the number also was good. No falling off could 
be reported in the Scotch arrivals. It is always expec- 
ted that the Scotch breeders will keep up their reputa- 
tion for excellent stock, and no surprise s therefore 



142 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

felt that to-day proves no exception to the rule. It 
would be curious were a falling off noticed. Scotland 
retains her traditional position. Cross-breds were, as 
usual, a numerous class, and were second to none 
regarded in the light of a profitable vehicle for supply- 
ing the principal markets with prime meat. Taken 
altogether, the show may be described as a success, and 
quite up to the average. At to-day's market, however, 
the exhibition was a very distinct improvement over 
the previous two years both in point of number and 
condition. The average rate per head was, we should 
say, distinctly heavier. The Scotch were a superb 
show, and all the best known breeders were, as usual, 
well represented. They certainly formed the most 
attractive portions of the market. Not that there was 
nothing else to attract attention. Herefords, Sussex, 
and Welsh Runts were all well represented. In fact, 
the market all around was a decided success." , 




ADDENDA. 



A LONDON POLLED ABERDEEN SOCIETY. 

The daily Free Press, Aberdeen, Scotland, December 
7, 1885, said : " It will be interesting to Scotch exhib- 
itors to know that there has been established in con- 
nection with the Smithfield Club, in London, a Polled 
Breeders' and Feeders' Annual Dinner Society. The 
first meeting has been held. Mr. R. Walker, factor, 
Altyre, who has been one of the most successful exhib- 
itors of Scotch cattle in London, has been unanimously 
appointed President of the Society, and Mr, Clement 
Stephenson, Sandyford Villa, Newcastle, has been 
appointed Vice-President. The object of the Society 
is specially to bring exhibitors of the polled cattle 
together in London during the Smithfield week, and 
to further the interests of the breed of polled cattle, 
which are making remarkable progress in England. 
The membership includes several prominent Scotch 
and English exhibitors of polled and polled cross-bred 
cattle." 

This was instituted before the Smithfield victories 
of the year. 



146 THE PREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

THE BREED EXTENDS ITS OUTPOSTS MORE AND, 
MORE. 

The Banffshire Journal, in its reports of the late 
Birmingham and Smithfield shows, notes as the con- 
sequent result of the unparalleled achievements of the 
Aberdeens at these exhibitions the further extension of 
the breed into England by the establishment of new 
herds. This is very gratifying. It is remarkable, 
assuredly, the great number of herds of Aberdeens in 
England. There are more herds of Angus in England 
— outside its native limits — than there are Short-horns 
(or any other English breed) in Scotland. Take as a 
test the Breeders' Directory in The Live -Stock Journal 
Almanac, In this we find only two Short-horn herds 
in Scotland mentioned, while there are no fewer than 
five Aberdeen-Angus in England. 

" Major Irwin, Lynthow, Carlisle, who has been 
breeding Short-horns, is to replace them by a herd of 
Polled Aberdeen-Angus, which he is now forming." 

Such items we are constantly reading now in our 
home papers; showing the increasing favor in which they 
are regarded in England. 

We could give very many more similar " modern 
instances" in Scotland, England and Ireland where 
Short-horn breeders have sold off their favorites and 
gone in for the '' World-Beater " breed. 

In Vol. X of The Polled Herd Book, more entries 
are made from England than from America. American 
breeders of course naturally now prefer to record in the 
American Register. The number of English adherents 
in that Vol. is 20, and still there will be more breeders 
in the future. Its most conspicuous convert in Eng- 
land from the old faith, is Clement Stephenson. There 
are also other very prominent Short-horn breeders now 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. I47 

breeding Aberdeens contemporaneously with the red, 
white and roan. In America, the most prominent 
adherent may be truly said to be Hon. M. H. Cochrane, 
of " Hillhurst " fame ; who, from breeding four-thou- 
sand-guinea Duchesses, has gone in for the "coming" 
Aberdeens of which he is making a "specialty." We trust 
to see him producing some "thousand-guinea" Ericas 
and Prides. Col. G. W. Henry, of Angus Park, Kan- 
sas City, Mo., another champion " against all " is also 
a convert. So is Mr. T. W. Harvey, who, has secured 
Mr. Wm. Watson, as his newly appointed director of 
the destinies of the Turlington Doddies ; " WilHe" Wat- 
son, Angus foes are, by the Breeder s Gazette, cautioned 
to look out for — "as he is to Clement Stephenson, 
the Herefords and Short-horns next fall." 

Such tests as these, as Youat said of the Collings' 
sale — so unmistakably demonstrated by the public 
estimate as declared by the results of the auctioneer's 
hammer, can't be overlooked. Such are the fore- 
going and the following from that "live" organ, the 
Kansas City Live- Stock Indicator : "A Kansan in 
Auld Scotia: The Banffshire Journal, of Scotland, 
dated February 9th, has the following mention of a 
wide-awake Kansas man who has been rummaging 
around among some of the best of the polled herds to 
be found in their native country : Tn a notice in The 
Field of Saturday last of the herd of Aberdeen-Angus 
cattle belonging to Mr. C. Stephenson, Newcastle 
(the breeder of Luxury, the heifer which won the 
champion prize at the last Smithfield show), we find 
the following — ' Judge Goodwin of Beloit, whose visit 
to Mr. Stephenson jumped well with our own, told us 
that on the Goodwin Park stock farm, worked by a 
brother and himself, they had tested on a small scale 



148 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

the relative and comparative merits of Short-horns, 
Herefords, Angus, Galloways, Jersey and Holstein 
cattle, side by side on the natural pastures, without any 
additional food, and the result was that the Short- 
horns were first drafted, next two dairy breeds, then 
Herefords, and lastly Galloways. The evidence in 
favor of the Angus cattle was overwhelming, especially 
as regards adaptibility to climatic conditions, hardiness 
of constitution, and ability to thrive on little food ; 
indeed, when once in condition, it would be difficult to 
starve them. This firm has now 125 head, including 
some very choice animals; indeed, they owned Judge, 
of the Jilt family, which was the champion bull at the 
Paris show in 1878. Messrs. Goodwin breed partly for 
the ranches, but principally to sell bulls to small farm- 
ers in Kansas, to improve the common stock of the 
country, and had an increasing demand." 

These are the best '' comparative " tests. Who cares 
a jot for the so-called scientific college comparative 
experiments that have been published ? We know that 
at a certain Agricultural College from which emanate 
voluminous periodicals, called comparative ''tests" 
made on the beef and milk breeds" the students grad- 
uate with the dogma e.g. that the Aberdeen-Angus is 
no " feeder," and also come away with '' a preju- 
dice against the Aberdeen-Angus." What is the public 
opinion, however, of these "■ tests?" We only allude to 
the half-breed experiments. — Here is what the Mark 
Lane Express has recorded : '' The experimental trials 
in connection with the feeding of cattle and sheep as 
conducted by of the Agricultural Col- 
lege, , come before the public in a voluminous 

report printed by order of the Legislative Assembly. 
The tabulative details are positively bewildering, and 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. I49 

when the number of amimals experimented on is taken 
into consideration the game seems scarcely worth the 
candle. -k- # * * * 

''The elaborate analyses -2^ ^ * -^^ 

do not seem very tangible. With regard to the experi- 
ments with sheep, they are still more intangible in their 
nature and rendering, and altogether the Professor 
seems to have shown a mountain of labor with a mouse 
for re suit r 

The test of the dollar is not the least important. 
The general average of prices realized at public sales 
of Short-horns, Herefords and Aberdeen-Angus for 
1883, 1884 ^^^<^ 1885 in America, have been in favor of 
the last named breed. 

And still the breed is ahead at sales. The following 
is the report of the 'Mast" sale, that of Hon. M. H. 
Cochrane, at Chicago, May 16, from Breeder s Grzette: 
" The draft of doddies included some yearling and 
two-year-old heifers of exceptional merit, and a num- 
ber of good cows with calves at foot or forward in 
calf to Paris 1163. The most conspicuous feature of 
the sale was the absence of Angus breeders, there 
being but very few in attendance. With the exception 
of two Lady Idas, a Favorite, a Baromess, and an 
Emily of Kinochtry, the lots were not fashionably 
bred, but were for the most part from standard and 
well-established herds, but of such excellent individual 
merit were they that bidders seemed inclined to fol- 
low them well to their worth. The men who pur- 
chased were chiefly beginners or small breeders who 
appeared to appreciate the character of the cattle 
offered them. The crowd was thoroughly tired and 
restless by the time the blacks were reached, and 
to add to the coufusion, a heavy storm broke with 



150 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

such force as to almost bring the sale to a stop on 
account of the darkness and the din. In spite of 
these disadvantages an average of $371.65 was scored' 
and had not a cow which had aborted a few days 
before the sale been included, the average would have 
reached $380. The magnificent Lady Ida heifer Lady 
Lyra Ilillhurst 3906 was the highest priced lot, going 
to Elias Trumbo, Ottawa, 111., for $800. The best bar- 
gain of the day was Lord Lyons, a full brother to 
Lady Lyra Hillhurst, and pronounced by Mr. Cochrane 
the best individual of any breed he had ever bred at 
Hillhurst. This unusual youngster went at the low 
figure of $450 to Ben F. Elbert, Albia, la., who is 
quietly building up a herd of ' top ' Angus doddies." 
This certainly beats the record as to prices, this season 
too. For the sale of the Attrill Duchess Short-horns, 
next day at same place, cannot be put against 
this sale. When Cochrane sells some of his Prides 
and Ericas, he will leap into the thousands ; as he did 
a few years ago, getting over $3,000 for one heifer at 
public sale. 

THE POLL TAKES THE PRIZE IN A KEEN " MILK-COW " 
COMPETITION. 

The British correspondent of the Kansas City Live- 
stock Record, March 18, 1886, writes: ''An interesting 
competition was held at Edinburgh last week by 
Messrs. Oliver & Son, live-stock salesmen in the south, 
east of Scotland. They offered $200 in three classes for 
milk cows ; and there was a good entry of useful dairy 
cattle in all three. The first class was for Short-horn 
or cross-bred cows, and two dozen faced the judges, 
premium honors being gained by a Black Poll. Sixteen 
Ayrshires were entered for competition, and a dozen in 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 151 

the open class for any breed. The competition was 
very keen ; and at the sale which followed the dairy 
stock entered were disposed of at better rates than 
have been current for some time." 

CROSSING. 

From Live-Stock Journal, February 26 : " Mr. Dick- 
inson, Roos, Hull, has sold two Aberdeen-Angus bulls 
for crossing purposes to go to the west of Ireland. Mr. 
Robert Bruce, Great Smeaton, Northallerton, has pur- 
chased three Aberdeen bulls for farmers in the north 
of England for crossing purposes. The Aberdeen- 
Angus bulls put to Short-horn cows give a good account 
of themselves. There are quite a number of farmers 
in the northeastern counties of England using Aber- 
deen-Angus bulls." 

Mr. James A. Cochrane, of Hillhurst, Que., writes 
{Breeder s Gazette, March 25, 1886,) of his recent trip 
to Britain : " Before leaving the other side, I visited 
some of the largest and best herds of Polls in the 
South. The interest in polled cattle is rapidly increas- 
ing. Bulls of the breed being bought by influential 
men in all parts of the country for crossing purposes, 
largely in consequence of the sweeping victories of 
Aberdeen-Angus cattle and their crosses at the last 
Smithfleld show." Judge J. S. Goodwin, of Beloit, 
Kansas, a large breeder of Aberdeen-Angus, reports 
similarly to us on his recent trip to the old world. 

The following appears in the April (1886) number of 
the Canadian Live-Stock Journal'. "The records of 
the Smithfield Club, (London,) have shown that for the 
joint purpose of providing beef and coming early to 
maturity, no race of cattle can beat the Polled Aber- 
deen-Angus. -X- -X- # * ^ breed of cat- 



152 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

tie that in many important respects outstrips all rivals. 
* * * * as a breed their type is 

almost more firmly fixed than any other race of cattle. 
No variety exercises so strong an influence in the mould- 
ing of their progency, not even the Short-horn cr Here- 
ford or Devon. That has been a distinctive feature 
of the Polled Aberdeen-Angus cattle from the first." 
A correspondent of the London Live-Stock Journal^ 
April 22, 1886, says: "I have great faith in the cross 
between a Polled Angus bull and Short-horn cow. I 
think for butchers' purposes there is nothing can beat 
them. They make good weights, and for early matur- 
ity and lightness of offal they are second to none. 
They are also very good dairy cows. I question very 
much if any of the Herefords or Short-horns did more 
in one year than the Black Polls and Black crosses did 
last year, for in all the leading shows in England every 
first prize in the cross-bred classes was taken by this 
cross, and, with the exception of Mr. Loder's aged ox, 
whose sire was a Short-horn, all the others were sired 
by Polled Angus bulls, which I believe to be the most 
impressive sire of the day ; and as there are a good 
many young sires of this breed all over England now, 
I hope to see blacks and blue-grey crosses winning 
again next year." 

EARLY MATURITY. 

George T. Turner, writing to t\\Q National Livc-Stock 
Journal, February, 1882, said of the Aberdeens : 'Their 
fine bone, thick flesh and hardiness are greatly in their 
favor as beef cattle ; and the records of the London 
Show go to prove that they can lay claim to the front 
rank in respect of early maturity. In the annual tables 
published by the Mark Lane Express, the Scotch Polled 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 53 

cattle came out in a manner which is something of a 
surprise to English breeders, and they are in a fair way 
to come into more general favor with English feeders. 
For shop use, the Polled animal, on account of his 
smaller bone was a better cutting beast. " 

CHICAGO dealers' AND BUTCHER'S OPININIONS. 

Harrison Miller writes Breeder s Gazette^ April 29 : 
" Regarded as beef-producers, they are not excelled, 
being compact and symmetrical, well fleshed, and their 
meat being of a most excellent quality. I remember 
helping my father to slaughter one a few years ago, 
and when we came to eat the beef, we all thought it 
was the best we had ever tasted, it was so sweet and 
juicy." 

Another (English) butcher describing the slaughter 
of a heifer said : "■ Killed, she dressed a remarkable 
carcass. She was one of the best fed beasts ever seen, 
with so little internal room that it was a surprise where 
the viscera had been packed, and with plenty of lean 
meat, very fine bone, and showing remarkably small 
offal throughout." 

The following is from the Chicago Drover s Journal, 
April 29: "S. D. Seaver, of Mantino, 111., is a farmer and 
a practical stockman. He breeds Short-horn and 
PoUed-Angus cattle, not for breeding purposes, but for 
beef. He was among the visitors at the yards and 
brought in three cars of cattle, all of his own feeding, 
consisting of half-blood PoUed-Angus steers, pure 
Short-horn steers, a car of choice cows and heifers, and 
some medium beef steers. The Short-horns were very 
pretty and attracted not a little admiration, but the 
attention chiefly centered about the pen containing 
the 16 grade Angus. They were out of a pure-bred 



154 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

Angus bull and Short-horn cows, and were entirely 
hornless and almost uniformly black. The majority of 
them were just two years old this month, but some in 
the lot were coming twos in July. The two-year-old 
Short-horns sold at $5.00; the medium steers sold at 
$4.55, and the heifers at $4.12^, but at a late hour the 
black cattle had not been sold." Next week it said : 
"The Polled-Angus steers, 16 head, averaged 1224 lbs., 
sold at $5.40. They were bred and raised by Mr. S. 
D. Seaver, of Mantino, 111. The cattle were carrying 
two-year-olds in April to July." 

" IN THE WEST." 

In connection with the notice of the Victoria Ranch, 
the following from Mr. Thomas R. Clark, is from the 
National Ltve-Stock Journal, July, 1880: *' On reading 
the article ' Polled Angus Cattle in Missouri,' in the 
Journal for June, quoting a letter to the Kansas City 
Price Current, written by Mr. Joseph H. Rea, of Car- 
rol county, Mo., giving his opinion and experience with 
a lot of young steers from my stock farm in Kansas, 
of this breed, I deem it proper to state, for the infor- 
mation of your readers, that the animals he refers to 
were a lot of two-year-old steers, the first cross from 
pure black polled bulls on the common Texas cows, 
sent by me last fall to the Kansas City market. The 
above statement shows to be a very important factor 
to be taken into consideration in forming an opinion 
of the merits of any breed of cattle. It is very gratify- 
ing to me to know that Mr. Rea has such a high opin- 
ion of these animals, and it convinces me that two 
or three moves from the common Texas stock will 
render them still more appreciated. I believe them 
eminently adapted to the Western Plains, by reason of 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 155 

their extreme hardihood — thriving where others would 
loose flesh — the entire absence of horns, and above all, 
the superior quality of their top price in the English 
markets. The late Mr. Grant and myself imported 
four of these young bulls, in 1873, and it is from the 
progency of these three bulls, (probably the only ones 
then in the United States,) that I have received so 
many compliments on the style and quality of my cat- 
tle from so many quarters. I have an abiding faith 
that these Polled Aberdeen cattle are yet to become 
very popular in the United States, possessing so many 
very valuable qualities. 

Mr. Wm. Watson, superintendent at Turlington, 
writes me : *' The Western men have fairly set their 
hearts on the Aberdeen-Angus. Metcalf the great 
cattle man had some pure Short-horn cows in calf and 
with calves at their feet to a Black Polled bull. Four 
of the cows strayed away during the first storm this 
winter. They had suckling calves with them. The 
herdsmen went after them and came upon them some 
twenty miles from the ranch. The four Stort-horn 
cows were all lying dead. The four black calves were 
standing beside their dead mothers, but were strong 
and hearty and were able to walk back to the ranch 
along with some others. These calves were only about 
12 weeks old, on an average. So you see what the 
black cross effects. Governor Routt, who has his 
herd near Denver, says his Aberdeen- Angus and half- 
breed calves were all saved, although dropped in the 
snow. All the other sorts nearly all died. These are 
strong arguments for the Aberdeen-Angus." 

The Drover s Journal^ March 25, 1886, noting the 
arrival at Littleton, Mass., of a large importation of 
Aberdeen Polled cattle by Messrs. Kirby & Cree, of 



156 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

Fort Stanton, New Mexico, says : '* The cattle were 
purchased with great judgment and care by Andrew 
Mackenzie, of Dalmore. Ross-shire, and selected by him 
personally during the past four months. The name of 
the ranch for which these cattle are destined is called 
the ' Angus VV. Ranch,' situated in Lincoln county. 
New Mexico. The property is of large extent, embrac- 
ing a large area of rolling country, watered by the 
Rio Doso, Rio Bouito, Rio Saludo, Little Creek and 
Eagle, five rivers that afford a large supply of water. 
In the pastures at present are extensive herds of high 
grade Short-horn and Hereford cattle. The owners 
were desirous for the most likely corrective of the 
tendency in these descriptions of stock to develop bone, 
and their inquiries resulted in the conviction that the 
Aberdeen-Angus Polled cattle, were the most likely 
to impart the qualities of low standing, thick flesh and 
early maturity. The bulls, with one exception, will be 
placed on the ranch, in company with their Short-horn 
and Hereford grades, with which they will be crossed.'' 

ABERDEENS PREFERRED TO THE JERSEYS. 
Mr. C. R. C. Dye, well known as a breeder of Jerseys 
at Troy, O., has made a new departure, as will be seen 
from the following communication to the Breeder's 
Gazette, May 20, written by him under date of April 
25 from Scotland : ''After my disastrous fire and des- 
truction of the bulk of my Jerseys, of which I wrote 
you, I determined to come abroad and replenish my 
herd, with little or no idea of buying * black doddies,' 
but I thought I would take a look at them before going 
to the Island of Jersey, and the consequence was that I 
was so pleased with them that I have purchased as a 
foundation for a herd sixty-five head — sixty females 
and five bulls." 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 57 

I may note here that some remarkable cattle transac- 
tions have taken place in Scotland, by Mr. Geary, of Can- 
ada and others. This gentleman has purchased the two 
whole herds of Gavenwood and Glenbarry formerly 
owned respectively by Mr. John Hannay and Mr. J. W. 
Taylor. The two herds consist of nearly loo head. These 
transactions taken in conjunction with that regarding 
Justice, are surely grand testimony of the new world in 
favor of Old Scotia's National Breed. 



CONCLUSION. 



''THE WORLD'S BEEFER." 

The following declaration is by Professor Brown, prin- 
cipal of the Guelph Agricultural College, Ontario, as to 
the world's new beefer which "is unquestionably the 
Aberdeen-Angus Poll. In these times of specialties this 
breed of cattle is bound to fill a big place in the world's 
products. The hardiness, early maturity, general qual- 
ity and weight of the Poll can not fail to lead. It was 
really a very pleasant duty to inspect, as I did, nearly 
every prominent herd of these in Scotland, and to see 
so much 'canny,' forseeing, practical judgment exer- 
cised in their extensive production. I could not buy 
from some at even ^i,ooo a head, and yet I gave the 
highest price that had ever been paid for a bull. The 
black diamonds of the north of Scotland will make 
warm ground for the Short-horn and Hereford." 



158 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

''THE COMING STEER." 

Mr. J. J. Hallet, in an address before the Carroll 
county (111.) Breeders' Association, reported in the 
Breeder s Gazette, January 6, 1886, indicates how we 
are to obtain '' The Coming Steer :" ''The almost com- 
plete success that has been accomplished in the line of 
breeding at will, and the genuine improvement in every 
way upon the steer, both as to quantity and quality, 
seems to be impossible in the minds of some otherwise 
substantial farmers. And if there should be any such 
present, I will state for their encouragement that the 
question can no longer be a doubtful one when breeders 
have been able to breed horns on or off their steers' 
heads just as they wish it to be. There is a breeder 
now living in Carroll county, a prominent member of 
this live stock association in good and regular standing 
in the society, who, after completing his arrangements 
with an imported colored gentleman from Canada, by' 
the name of Aberdeen P. Angus, publicly challenged 
his entire herd of cows, who carry horns of every con- 
ceivable size and shape, to produce a single calf that 
will ever grow a horn upon his own head, and about 
three years have passed without a single horn to be seen. 
If a vote should be taken here to-day upon the question 
of what the coming steer will be, there would beat 
least one vote for the muley." 

This is doing good. The editor of the Drover s Jour- 
nal comments thus : " Apropos of the late agitation 
about dehorning cattle, it is stated that three years ago 
an Illinois stockman introduced a polled Aberdeen- 
Angus bull into his his horned dairy herd, and, as he 
expresses it, ' publicly challenged his cows to produce 
a single calf that should ever grow a horn upon its own 
head,' and up to the present time they have not been 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 1 59 

able to do it. The Nezv England Farmer, whose editor 
has had satisfactory experience in the same direction, 
commends this breeding off a worse than useless excres- 
ence, and hopes there will be a general effort to the 
same end, which, he says, does not involve special sac- 
rifice of other peculiarities and good qualities of favor- 
ite animals." 

Many have the stupid whim that horns are ornamen- 
tal. We are quite surprised to see that advanced jour- 
nal, Farmer s Review, March 3, 1886, saying so ; though 
it admits the great harm they are capable of. But the 
Drover s Journal says, right out : '^ Horns are certainly 
not useful on beef animals, and not very ornamentair 
The horns must go. We do not consider this a great 
argument to advance the interests of the prepotent, 
pre-eminent. Polled Aberdeen-Angus. Indeed, the 
National Live-Si ock Jour7ial, even on the first appear- 
ance of the breed in this country said : " The want of 
horns is, in our opinion, but tJie least of their good 
qualities." 

" MORALLY CERTAIN TO WIN." 

The Breeder s Gazette observes that " the admirers of 
the Angus in particular are showing a disposition to 
make a strong pull for popular favor. The record their 
favorites have made at the fat-stock shows both at 
home and abroad has served to nerve the already 
strong hands in which the breed is largely held in Ame- 
rica, and there is every prospect of all reasonable prosper- 
ity for the 'doddies' during the coming year. Home- 
bred polled bullocks will soon be an established feature 
of our fat-stock shows, and there is every reason for 
assuming that the success which they are morally cer- 
tain to win both on foot and upon the block at these 



l6o THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. 

exhibitions will stimulate the demand for pure-bred 
specimens for stock purposes." And echo answers : 
"Few as their numbers have been, they have already- 
made their mark in the carcass ring in a way that warns 
competitors to beware." — National Live-Stock Journal. 
The American Agriculturalist (New York), August, 
1885, thus declares itself in favor of ^' Angus Doddies:" 
"Among all the excellent breeds of neat cattle' for 
which the world, and the ' new world ' particularly, is 
indebted to the British Isles, none take a higher econom- 
ical rank than the Angus ' Doddies,' which have 
become great favorites with the graziers throughout 
our great feeding region. They are a compact, well- 
shaped, hardy race, of tremendous potency of blood. 
Their coats, which are fine and heavy, afford all needed 
protection against rain and cold, wind and hail, to all 
of which the herds of the plains are more or less sub- 
ject. -J*- * * * -x- * 

''There is no better beef in the world than that of the 
Angus cattle. The choice parts are well developed, 
the fat is laid on evenly, and the meat beautifully mar- 
bled, while the percentage of offal is very small. * 
* •)(• -x- * * -x- 

"The future of the breed in this country is assured. 
It is admirably adapted to shipping by rail or steamer. 
Its grades possesses the characteristics of their sires to 
a remarkable degree, maturing early, keeping them- 
selves in thrifty growing order on only fair forage, and 
fatting up very quickly when they get grain. They 
have won not only prizes, but public confidence, and it 
is hardly too much to say (though perhaps it is not 
modest in us), that the highest prize they can win 
seems now within their grasp — the confidence of the 
American farmers and cattlemen^ that they are the best 



THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD. l6l 

breed of tJie beef cattle in the world. The American 
Agriculturist has long (and persistently) advocated 
Polled cattle for the plains, and especially for shipping 
alive to European markets. There is nothing equal to 
them for this end, and the facts as reported by ship- 
pers and breeders abundantly corroborate these views." 

The French journal Z^j^«?rw?>r, has declared that: 
" The Angus is one of the most remarkable breeds 
of cattle, and is bred under conditions, and by means 
which make it worth more than any other of the atten- 
tion of rearers." 

The following is the general grand summary, brought 
to a focus and common percentage — as recorded in the 
official report of the Seventh Annual American Fat 
Stock Show. That the extract is a fitting conclusion 
to our labors, will be admitted: ** It will be seen from 
the above awards of premiums by expert judges at the 
seven shows, if we take into consideration the number 
of entries of each class of cattle shown, that prestige 
is as follows : 

** First, Aberdeen-Angus (it having received 219.15 
per cent, above its proportional amount) ; second, 
Grade Angus, (it having received 192.4 per cent, above 
its proportional amount) ; third. Short-horn, (it having 
received 46.21 per cent, above its proportional amount); 
and fourth, Herefords, (it having received 22.21 per 
cent, above its proportionate amount." 

To apply a well known and very appropriate phrase, 
the author may be permitted " lastly " to declare : 
They are the chunky sort that means business. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY'. 

The following works ought to be consulted by Aber- 
deen-Angus men : " HISTORY OF THE Highland 



l62 THE BREED THAT BEATS THE RECORD 

AND Agricultural Society." by Alexander Ram- 
say, editor of the Banffshire Jouriial, editor of The 
Polled Herd Book, published 1879, price i6s. — HIS- 
TORY OF THE Polled Aberdeen-Angus Breed 
OF Cattle." By Jas. McDonald, author of " Food 
from the Far West,", etc., etc., editor of The Live-Stock 
Journal, etc., and Jas. Sinclair, associate-editor of do. 
Price I OS. gd. — " Cattle AND CATTLE Breeders." 
Fourth edition, just published, by William McCom- 
bie of Tillyfour, M. P., with a memoir of the author 
by Jas. McDonald, editor of the Live-Stock Journal, 
published 1886. Price, 3s. 6d. — The above are all 
published by Blackwood & Sons., George St., Edin- 
burgh, Scotland, and a postal note for $10 will deliver 
the three. 

THE AMERICAN ABERDEEN-ANGUS ASSOCIATION. 
The address of the Secretary of the above Associa- 
tion, who publish the American Polled Herd Book, 
is: Charles Gudgell, Esq., Independence, Mo. 

ERRATA. 

The author is responsible for these two oversights : 
Page 4, line 10 from top for " Eccossais " read Ecosse. 
Page 89, line 4, from top, for '' Journal " read hidica- 
tor. 

Some other typographical errors being of a trifling 
nature need not be referred to. 

" judge's " DIMENSIONS. 

On page 20, the dimensions of the bull "Judge" have 
been incorrectly rendered by the printer. From Mr. 
W.R.Goodwin, Jr., I am informed "Judges's" dimensions 
were as follows : Height at shoulder, 4 feet 8 inches; 
heighth at hip, 4 feet 9 inches ; girth, 7 feet 10 inches ; 
length from top of poll, 8 feet i inch ; weight, 2,600 
pounds. 

FINIS. 



